Founding of the Society

The Society came into being on Wednesday 30th March 1910 when nine philatelists met in a solicitor's office in Union Street, Aberdeen and formally approved a motion "that it is of the opinion of this meeting that it is desirable to form a Society to promote the collection and study of postage stamps". Thus a fourth philatelic society came into being in Scotland.  2010 was therefore a very special year for the society and a number of events took place to celebrate.

Centenary Reception

The Society founding was celebrated that event to the day, on 30 March 2010, when members attended the Town House, Aberdeen, for a drinks reception & finger buffet, at the invitation of the Lord Provost. Further details of the history of the Society are available here. For photos of the Town House reception, please click here.

ASPS Congress & Centennial Dinner

Continuing our centenary year celebrations, the Society hosted the ASPS Congress at the Dewar's Centre, Perth on 16 - 17 April 2010. Jeff Stone, Congress Delegate and Newsletter Editor of the Society, is also president of Congress. As hosts, the Society had a table manned by members on a rotating basis, at both days of the exhibition at Congress.

Many members and their guests were present at the centennial dinner, held coincident with the ASPS Congress dinner on 16th April. We started the evening with the Tom Rielly Memorial talk given by Dr David Kindley, the president of the society. He gave a highly entertaining and thought provoking talk on Afghanistan, which he illustrated with slides of  appropriate philatelic material, that served to illustrate, in the writers' view, the futility of going to war in Afghanistan. David began collecting Afghanistan in 1993 to prepare a display for Aberdeen during his first term as president. At that time very few people knew where Afghanistan was, including US Presidents, and fewer collected Afghan stamps. Now, at least everyone knows where Afghanistan is. David's talk was of very general interest and non philatelists amongst the audience were thus equally well entertained.

The Tom Rielly talk was followed by a Civic Reception hosted by the Provost of Perth. At the Centennial Dinner that followed we were entertained by Susan Oliver, who regaled us with some most interesting anecdotes about her work for a leading auction house. This was followed by the presidential address and then the ASPS Awards ceremony. Finally, Douglas Muir, the well-known philatelic journal editor and author, signed the Book of Scottish Philatelists. We're delighted to present here a photo gallery of the events at Congress, including some general views of the exhibition area.

Members of the Society contributed a 60 frame display to the exhibition at Congress. A huge variety of interests were demonstrated amply illustrating the breadth of our members interests. These ranged from items as close to home as for example Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire postal history to items from places much further away such as Australia, China, New Zealand, and Samoa and many others. Thematic collectors were also well represented with displays including animals, insects, explorers and as it turned out, very topically, volcanoes. Also included was a frame of fascinating items from the society archive as well as frames representing the collections of the late Jack Waterman, Ron Stables and Sandy Mackie. Some of the displays are shown here.

Souvenir postcards and envelopes were available at Congress. The postmark, generously sponsored by Royal Mail, designed for Congress shows the early 19th century Post Office in the City's Mercat Cross which has been adopted as the Society logo. The 17th Century Cross, used for public proclamations, is one of the finest in Britain and is topped with a fine unicorn supporting a Satire shield.

Aberdeen Philatelic Society 1910 - 2010

The Society published its history "Aberdeen Philatelic Society 1910 - 2010", which was written by Jeffrey Stone. It runs to 165 pages in A5 format with some 80 illustrations, many of which are in full colour. Although the content specifically relates to the society, formerly known as the Aberdeen and North of Scotland Philatelic Society, which is now the Aberdeen Philatelic Society,  it also reflects the history of the hobby in the country more generally, hence the sub title "a History of Philately in North East Scotland". Further details of content are available here in PDF format. If you would like to purchase a copy please see the Offers  page.

Centenary Exhibition

The Centenary Exhibition in the Maritime Museum, Ship Row, Aberdeen ran from 18 July to 14 November 2010. It was a six-frame exhibition with a display which changed every four weeks. The event was recognised as part of London 2010 Festival of Stamps, a year long programme of exhibitions, events and activities to mark the centenary of the accession of George V, the philatelist king. Further details of the Centenary Exhibition are given here in PDF Format. Some photos of the exhibition can be found here.

Royal Philatelic Society Display

The penultimate event in our Centenary year celebrations was the display given to the Royal Philatelic Society, London on 11 November 2010. The display showcased the collecting interests of around 30 of our members. To commemorate the event, Stewart Duncan produced a lavish commemorative booklet, the latest in a line of publications by Aberdeen members, which detailed all of the displays and illustrated sample items from each of them. It can be downloaded here in high quality, or here in a lower quality, which may be preferred if your internet connection is slow. Please allow sufficient time for the files to download - the higher quality file is 13 MB and the lower quality one is still a 7 MB file.

A number of photographs were taken on the day and these are available to view thanks to Jeff Stone and Fred Jefferies. Please Click here to view them, again please be aware that these are large files which may require some time to download

Centenary Dinner

About 40 members and guests enjoyed our final Centenary celebration. This was the Centenary Dinner, held at the Caledonian Thistle Hotel, Union Terrace, Aberdeen on Thursday 24th March 2011. Among the highlights of the evening were the introduction and speech by the president of the Society, David Kindley, who particularly gave thanks to Sheila Den, on her pending retirement as Secretary, for her many years of service to the Society. Thanks were also given to Chris Jefferies for doing so much to organise the evening, and to George Stephen for the splendid menus (shown at right) he prepared for the occasion.

Later, the Vice President, Mike Longhurst, proposed thanks to David Kindley, for his invaluable service, in acting as the voice and face of the society during our Centenary Year. Various prizes were awarded during the evening, including gifts for our oldest and youngest members and to members still present who had originally joined the Society via the now defunct Junior Section.

In addition, a free raffle meant that numerous members were fortunate to win a souvenir of the evening to take home! A photo gallery of the evening, kindly provided by Fred Jefferies, is available here. Please note that with 42 pictures this is a large file, and may take some time to load.