Reading & District Cigarette Card & Postcard Club

Newsletter 2010 - 1

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all. I’m sorry that the snow and ice has led to the postponement of Cliff’s talk, but I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible on January 28th.

The AGM went well with an amazing turnout of 52, the most we have had for a long time. Keep on coming. Congratulations to Mike Tubb on winning the Phil Blow Trophy, with the most wins in the one card competition. We had 18 different winners for the year, which shows how many of you take part. Well done Mike. Derek Davis was adjudged by the committee the worthy winner of the Brian Eighteen Award for his contribution and help to the Club. He always helps with tables and chairs at meetings. His gentle persuasion with members of the public in voting for the competition at our Annual Fair resulted in 146 voting forms handed in, the most we have ever had. Well done Derek. Unfortunately Brian was unwell and unable to come to the AGM, so on his behalf I had the pleasure of making the presentation. I was very pleased to award Jenny Jerrum Honorary Life Membership for all her hard work over the last thirty years. She was on the committee, has been the auction organiser and has made gallons of tea and coffee. Well done Jenny, you deserve it. And a big thank you to Margaret and Ken Hussey and Frances Starman for the superb spread of food and drink.

A warm welcome to the club to John Slevin, who joined us at the AGM adding to the slight increase in membership. Sadly though, we lost former long standing members Harry Horsham, Pat Pratt and Gerry Wray last year and they will be sorely missed.

The committee were all re-elected and I thank them for all their hard work, as I thank everyone who had volunteered and helped us. The number of members who come to meetings has increased with an average attendance throughout the year of 35. It shows we are a hardworking and thriving club, so long may it continue. Gary Arkell has kindly put a flyer in his auction catalogues advertising our club, and we hope that this will prove successful. If anyone would like to write an article for the newsletter then I am sure Mike Tubb will be only too pleased to receive it.

For those of you, who have not yet paid your subscription, please contact David Gerken as soon as possible to avoid the need for him to remind you!

Here's looking forward to another great year and please enjoy your hobby.
Coral Print

Gerry Wray

It was with great sadness and shock that we heard of the sudden passing of Gerry Wray whose dry jovial banter and companionable demeanour will be deeply missed. I only knew him for a few years, but I quickly came to regard him as an old familiar card-buddy....he would, no doubt, correct me there by saying "less of the old"! He would often talk fondly of his band-playing days and haggling with him over the value of cards was always a good-natured pleasure. I remember that he once offered me a unique set of DIY bootleg cards, which he created from cigarette card sized magazine pictures. I did not take him up on his intriguing 'under the counter' offer, I wish now that I had. The last item he tempted me with was a carefully preserved Coronation Street Caricature 'soap' wrapper; a smile-inducing souvenir of our final moment together.
John Devaney

Carol Prior

I was so sorry to hear from Mike Prior that his wife Carol had sadly passed away after a short illness. For those of you with long memories you will no doubt remember the number of times Mike drove all the way to the club from Spalding, as the guest dealer sometimes accompanied by Carol. She will be sadly missed.
Mike Tubb

Cards topical for today

Thanks to John Devaney for coming up with the original idea for this with the Postal Strike (thankfully postponed as I type). I have added cards for the war in Afghanistan and Swine Flu hygiene. Please let me have any cards that you consider topical for the next newsletter.

A Blast from the past – Life with the Lyons

At the meeting on November 12th I was looking through Gary's selection of cards he had brought along for the general dealing evening. I saw a card of Bebe Daniels and her name rang a bell in my fuzzy head that as a youngster I had heard and then seen her in a programme during the 1950s. I couldn't remember the name of it on the evening but the following day it came to me, Life With The Lyons. I have now done a little research (how good the internet is for this) and found the following. Life with the Lyons was a real family sitcom starring as well as Bebe, Ben Lyon (husband) and Barbara and Richard (children). It ran for 5 seasons and had 40 episodes. It was on ATV if you can remember that company and ran from 11th February 1955 to 1st May 1960.




Pen Portrait No: 2 – Coral Print

My first collecting interest was stamps with an album for G.B. then Australia, but as these were pre-printed with a space for each issue it soon became apparent that I was noticing the gaps in my collection and not the stamps I had already obtained. I then decided to do my own thing and started accumulating stamps, covers and postcards of Nigeria (nobody wanted them). I then became more interested in postcards because you could acquire what you wanted to and make it into your own personal collection.

I joined the club some 15-18 years ago (how time flies) and one day Ken Hussey, who was running the Twyford Fair, asked me if I would like a table, as a dealer had let him down. I gathered together all my surplus stamps and postcards, spent all day pricing them and wondered how on earth I was going to fill the large 6ft table. I really enjoyed the day; sold a few things but more importantly met some very pleasant collectors. It was all Ken's fault that I spent the next ten years going to auctions and being a dealer behind the now laden table(s). It was a fantastic time and I learnt so much about our most enjoyable hobby.

At the Reading Club I have made so many friends, spent several years on the committee, made up auction lists and my favourite job, banging the gavel on auction nights! Over the last two years it has been a privilege to be your Chairman, with the job made easier by a very hardworking committee and happy and enthusiastic members. I hope you all enjoy this hobby as much as I do.

My collecting interests are postcards of Bourne End and neighbouring villages, shop fronts and Victoria Cross winners. As I am Chairman and know very little about Cigarette/Trade cards I thought it was about time I increased my knowledge and I am now buying a few sets of these.


ENJOY YOUR HOBBY!

Editor’s musings
Welcome to the first Newsletter of 2010. We are through the AGM with the committee elected, accounts passed and us all, hopefully, looking forward to another great year of meetings, collecting and new acquisitions. As editor of the Newsletter I would like to thank Coral for her input despite all the work she has to do as our Chairman and to John Devaney for all his welcome suggestions as to items I can add to the Newsletter. He might not realise it, but he is a fountain of help and I am very grateful.

As you know I am a fan of eBay, not just for the items I can obtain but also for the cards you can see and note even if you cannot afford to purchase them. I know in the club we have collectors of Molassine cards and I saw one coloured 'cartoon' card sell for £34. There was also a small pinnace footballer sold for over £26 and a Topical Times large footballer over £28. I think that collectors are following Peter Wright's advice in the Cartophilic Notes and News to not put one's money in the bank but invest in cards.
What a great AGM we had. Thankfully we got through the business side of the evening in quick time, which then gave us the opportunity to concentrate on Tony Harden's fiendish 'guess the year' competition. Congratulations to Jackie Jeffery on winning it, although a winning total of 7 does not reflect too well on the rest of us!

I am the proud holder of the Phil Blow Cup for the next year. I will be doing all I can to hold onto it, so it is up to the rest of you to take it away from me. I will give you a little secret towards my success in the competition. I start looking out for entries as soon as the previous meeting is over. Hence sometimes I manage to enter each section, which gives a better chance of winning. I am not sure how many of the raffle tickets I obtained went on to win a prize, but it was a good few. We had eighteen individual winners. Let us see if between us we can beat that in 2010.

I would like at this time to give a big thank you to the committee for all the hard work they obviously put in to make our club the success it is. Have a great 2010 and enjoy your collecting.

Mike Tubb