Elsie Adamo
IF you have old mail or stamps lying around the house, this weekend is the time to bring them out.
The Mount Gambier Philatelic Society is hosting an open day on Sunday, offering its services to help identify the community’s collections.
President Neil Copping and Secretary Michael van der Linden have been involved in the society for decades, and will be on hand to help identify items brought in.
Mr Copping said anything to do with the post including letters, stamps, postmarks and postcards is welcome.
“If they have material they don’t know what to do with or they don’t want, we are also happy to receive it,” Mr Copping said.
While it is a common misconception that it is only old and rare stamps the club is hoping to unearth, both Mr Copping and Mr van der Linden said collectors are not trying to strike it rich.
“We are a philatelic society but generally most people know us as stamp collectors,” Mr Copping said.
“Money has nothing to do with what we collect.
“It is about a collective interest; I am more interested in the history.”
“As a club, we do commemorative covers and postcards to celebrate events,” Mr van der Linden said.
The club is encouraging the community to bring any local commercial mail from the last 20 years to help with their current project.
“What we are doing at the moment is compiling a history of the local post offices,” Mr van der Linden said.
“One of the aims is to get postmarks from Mount Gambier from the past 20 years, which are very scarce.”
The open day is from 1pm to 4pm in the society’s clubrooms at Reidy Park Community Centre on O’Halloran Terrace.
