Perhaps you have been intrigued by unfamiliar markings on items of mail or a recent visit to a Mechanised Letter Office, and would like to find out more. The Postal Mechanisation Study Circle was founded in 1976 and has a world-wide membership. We study all aspects of the automation and mechanisation of the posts around the world, for example postal markings, systems, equipment and stamps.
Publications issued free to members include the monthly Newsletter, the quarterly periodical IDENT, both of which have won many national and international awards. We also publish information sheets and membership and library lists. We have an extensive library, available to members for the cost of postage, which also holds literature from similar societies overseas.
We have published a booklet An introduction to British Postal Mechanisation, inclusive of two updating supplements). A further supplement, looking back over 10 years, was published in November 1992. In 1993 we began publication of our Handbook of British Postal Mechanisation (see below). With sections written by experts. It will appear in parts and build up into the standard reference work for the history of mechanisation of the postal services from 1857 to the present.
We produce commemorative covers for events marking important developments in postal mechanisation, and these are available on a standing order basis at prices from 60p. Other services for members include postal auctions, regular meetings and displays, usually held in London, but occasionally elsewhere. Visits are arranged to Mechanised Letter Offices, the Post Office Research Centre at Swindon, the National Postal Museum and manufacturers' premises
The subscription year runs from lst November - members joining after that date receive Newsletters and IDENT back to the November of the year of joining.
We hope you will wish to join the PMSC and take part in our activities. This is an exciting field in which there are always new developments, and we aim to learn as well as to inform. Don't be put off if you feel you don't know much - we all started that way!
If you wish to join or require further information please either contact the secretary, treasurer or myself at the addresses given above.
BRITISH POSTAL MECHANISATION HANDBOOK:
PMSC HANDBOOK: After several years debate and work, the Study Circle has begun publication of its handbook on British Postal Mechanisation. With sections written by experts, it will appear in parts and build up into the standard reference work for the history of the mechanisation of the postal services from 1857 to date. The pages are Iooseleaf so that updates and further parts can be added, and a binder is supplied with the first section.
The overall editor is Douglas Muir, our President and the Curator (Philately) of the National Postal Museum, and the first section contains three parts: an introduction and an essay on early British sorting machines both by Douglas Muir, together with the first part of a study on stamp cancelling machines by Jack Peach.
These parts cover mechanisation from about 1840 up to the early part of the 2Oth century, before any standard machines were in use, and thus describe experiments of greater or lesser success. Further sections will be published in due course covering such famous machines as the Transorma, more modern stamp cancelling machines, and the development of the code sorting system with its attendant postcodes, phosphor dots and machines.
The second part comprising two further chapters is also available. These are: the second chapter on cancelling machines and a new chapter on early British sorting machines.
The handsome A5 binder contains some 100 pages with a wealth of information and profuse illustrations of the main markings and machines, many of which have not been published before.
If you are interested in this publication please contact me - Bob de Vekey - via Email for further information.
© 1998 Bob de Vekey Updated March 2002