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Strange Find At Car Boot Sale: Stamp Extras

Ermintruder

Ermintruder

The greatest risk is to risk nothing at all...
Joined
Jul 13, 2013
Messages
6,201
This isn't odd enough for 'Minor Strangeness'...or maybe it is.

A couple of months back, I bought a small transparent plastic bag of collectors' stamps at a car boot sale (is this called a trunk sale in North America?)

I don't do this as a hobby anymore, not since I was about 10, but my S.O. does (they are not hugely-keen, but it's a thing they've always done).

I could see through the bag that there were many old British pre-decimal commemoratives in there, some mint unused, some cut from envelopes complete with the franking/cancellation marks.

Absolutely a mixed bag, I thought. And there I left it. How right I was in this conclusion only became apparent just over a week ago. (To be continued, sorry, am too tired just now, to be finished-off soon)
 
Luckily it's not bedtime - I'd be too excited to sleep!
 
Good post! Quite frankly, Philately will get you no where.
 
I think it is a case of Post-dramatic undress for bed syndrome
 
(Apologies for the delay...especially to @drbates. I certainly won't begin a thread ever again without finishing the start. My intention was just to make sure that I did write a post about the topic: a book-marker).

When I eventually did pour out the contents of the bag, in amongst the standard stamps, I could see what looked to be lots of coloured paper shapes, roughly-cut squares and triangles, all different pale colours and shapes/textures. I fully expected them to be stamps, cut from envelopes, but no.

They were a strange and interesting collection of tiny printed/embossed symbols and badges, mainly printed in black or blue ink, but in a detailed three-dimensional depth that was fascinating.

They all looked heraldic or military, or the type of artwork you might see on banknotes, on old legal bonds, or especially coins
I've done no proper research on them yet, but the fragments of writing (either pencil or copperplate ink) have made me realise the following:

- they are inked letter-heads (or envelope flap crests) cut from hotel, military and academic stationery

- some of them (perhaps all?) are over a hundred years old, yet in almost perfect condition. I base the age upon some handwritten date fragments

- none seem to be from the UK, they appeared to be Edwardian era Empire locations including India and Africa

- the regimental badges will be of ancient colonial armies, probably none of which still exist.

- despite being no bigger than a small fingernail, the detail is amazing.

So probably a bit of an anti-climax. But a weird and intimate little collection to find. I'll try and post some of them here, if I can.

Any theories as to what the collector was doing? We'll probably never know...
 
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Hopefully this example will work...
20150412_225723.jpg
 
No, not an anticlimax, but the start of a Fortean puzzle!

Do you have the facilities to copy them in detail?
A digital camera in close-up mode (or whatever they call that nowadays) would be fine.

But scan or photo them, and upload them here, or to a separate website.

Then the combined brain-power of the FTMB can be unleashed upon them!
 
Yes, the P.a.v.o Cavalry F.F. is excellent. Means nothing to me, but if it's out there, someone will eventually identify it.
 
The 11th Cavalry (Frontier Force), is an armoured regiment of the Pakistan Army. It was previously known as the 11th Prince Albert Victor's Own Cavalry (Frontier Force) and was a regular cavalry regiment of the old British Indian Army. It was formed in 1921 by the amalgamation of the 21st Prince Albert Victor’s Own Cavalry (Frontier Force) and the 23rd Cavalry.

From Wikipedia, natch.
 
CarlosTheDJ said:
The 11th Cavalry (Frontier Force), is an armoured regiment of the Pakistan Army. It was previously known as the 11th Prince Albert Victor's Own Cavalry (Frontier Force) and was a regular cavalry regiment of the old British Indian Army. It was formed in 1921 by the amalgamation of the 21st Prince Albert Victor’s Own Cavalry (Frontier Force) and the 23rd Cavalry.

From Wikipedia, natch.
Click to expand...
So pre-amalgamation, pre-1921. Again about 100 years old...so, WW1 era, but in India
 
Difficult to say, as I'm not at home. I'll try and put the Indian owl one up, tomorrow early.
 
CarlosTheDJ said:
The 11th Cavalry (Frontier Force), is an armoured regiment of the Pakistan Army. It was previously known as the 11th Prince Albert Victor's Own Cavalry (Frontier Force) and was a regular cavalry regiment of the old British Indian Army. It was formed in 1921 by the amalgamation of the 21st Prince Albert Victor’s Own Cavalry (Frontier Force) and the 23rd Cavalry.

From Wikipedia, natch.
Click to expand...

Now, somebody famous served in that regiment and I'm racking my brain to recall the name...

Pug Ismay: Winston Churchill's Chief Military Advisor (Lord, what a job!) and secretary to the Chiefs of Staff during the Second World War. A hero - nationally and personally. Friend of just about everybody on both sides of the Atlantic and first Secretary General of NATO.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hastings_Ismay,_1st_Baron_Ismay
 
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I'm guessing these are clippings someone made of old intaglio-printed items, such as the back of a posh envelope or letter heading. This is the same printing technique as is used for banknotes. These days, you don't see it about much apart from its use with money - but at one time it was everywhere, and was used on stamps.
They are probably not worth a huge amount, but may have some historical value.

Edit: After zooming into those photos, I can't really tell if they are intaglio printed or printed with a rubber stamp...
 
Ermintrude said:
Here is today's letter-head: a history of a world in a hundred scraps....

View attachment 426
Click to expand...

In 1868 the owl resting on crossed swords and surmounted by a crown, together with the motto "Tam Marte Quam Minerva' was adopted as the crest of the British Army Staff College, Camberley. The design was due to the joint efforts of Captain (later Major-General) JN Crealock, a student at the College, and Brevet Major (afterwards Lieutenant-Colonel) AS Jones, VC, the Adjutant at the time. Captain Crealock was a gifted amateur artist, and seeing that the College did not possess a crest he offered to design one. Minerva is the goddess of war and of wisdom in roman Mythology, and the owl was her favourite bird.

http://www.forces.gc.ca/en/training-establishments/command-staffcollege-index.page
 
@CarlosTheDJ , your Canadian quote is curious:

Minerva is the goddess of war and of wisdom in roman Mythology, and the owl was her favourite bird.
Click to expand...

What? Roman goddess of war? Isn't the Roman God of War normally Mars? I just have very-patchy insights on Roman mythology, and (like most people) rely upon Holst's 'Planet Suite' to inform my understandings about deificatory departmental designations.

Since Minerva is not a planet, just an asteroid, maybe she dips-out on the music front (I don't make the rules, I just take them out of the drawer sometimes)

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minerva

@drbates I don't believe we've met previously, and this is a very interesting response from you. Assuming you've not lost patience with this paragraph already, I will give (not offer) some valid advice to you. Please be careful never to be as direct in your manner offline as you appear to be on this forum. Until now, I wasn't really conscious of there having been many flakes on this forum, so thanks for having corrected my understanding on that point.

I'm not yet home, so tomorrow morning again another mysterious Empire Scrap should appear on this thread (and that's not a Galactic Empire Death Star shoot-em-up, but another paper-peculiar from the pink-mapped colonies of VR et ERVII)
 
@Mythopoeika , sorry, meant to say, intaglio printed, very much so. There's a beautiful raised solidity to some of these cuttings which reminds me of wax seals embossed with a signet ring (except the best of these are quite assertively convex, not inpushed sunken smudgeflats)
 
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2015-04-15 05.37.18.jpg


The Arms of Gladstone? Note the pencil-written name.
2015-04-15 05.58.35.png

This from the GoogleBooks "Fairbairn's Families of Great Britain and Ireland".

And I'll try putting up the higher-res uncorrected version, too:
20150415_053542.jpg


Is that droplets of blood, dripping from a severed head?
 
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Bellona? Roman goddess of war :)
 
Belatedly: a fairly unambigious crest:

20150420_221615.jpg

Drat! It's refusing to flip 180deg!! Have tried spinning it a couple of times, and it insists on going upside-down

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mike.comerford/ORDNANCE/01a.htm

Ordnance Insignia of the British Army

The meaning of 'Sua Tela Tonanti'

One aspect of the Ordnance Corps badge that has puzzled wearers over the years is the meaning of ‘Sua Tela Tonanti’
The official recorded meaning for at least the last twenty years of the Royal Army Ordnance Corps is:

‘To the Warrior his Arms’

In the 1956 edition of ‘The Ordnance Badge’ published by the RAOC School the following is written:

It is not uncommon to find a motto, which has no literal translation, being in the form of an incomplete phrase. Examples of this are

‘NIL SINE LABORE’ ‘INTUS SI RECTE NE LABORS and the Corps motto ‘SUA TELA TONANTI’

In the latter case, the translation of ‘SUA TELA’ – his weapons – is clear enough, but ‘TONANTI’, a dative without any governing verb leaves much to the imagination.

According to the investigations made by the late Major Asser RAOC, assisted by the late Mr A.E. Housman, a professor of Latin Poetry. It is possible that the motto is a free adoption of a line in Manilius.

‘ERIPVITQUE JOVI FULMEN TONATI’

(Reason or Science has wrested from thundering Jove his lightning and strength)

‘SUA TELA’ (his, i.e. JOVE’S weapons) are the exact equivalent in sense of ‘FULMEN VIRESQUE’ (lightning or strength and power)

From this the translation becomes:

‘Science has wrested from thundering Jove his weapons’

This is a very probable explanation and when one considers that the motto was often given in allusion to the achievements(The Ordnance Arms) surely no further translation is necessary, for in the achievement, the crest denotes an arm (strength) out of the mural crown (defence) grasping a Thunderbolt (Jove’s weapon), the arms modern weapons (16th century) in the form of cannons and shot and the supporters Cyclops, mythological artificers supporting (or making possible) the manufacture of these modern weapons.

The RAOC adopted the Board of Ordnance motto in 1918 and a translation has been sought to express the work now done by the Corps.

‘To the Army its Needs’ is a suggested very free translation which fills this requirement for want of something better,

‘To the Thunderer his Arms’
will be better known to older RAOC soldiers.

However:

To the Warrior his Arms

Is how I feel the RAOC motto will be best remembered

Sua Tela Tonanti
Click to expand...
 
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