Page 20 - 148 Years of the Royal Philatelic Society London

In 1886: Statue of Liberty erected on Bedloe's Island, Gold discovered in the Transvaal,

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde published, Apache Chief Geronimo captured.

At the PSL: Decisions made to hold meetings more frequently, on Friday evenings rather

than Saturday afternoons, at a more permanent location, The Salisbury Hotel, Fleet Street.

PSL President was Judge F. A. Philbrick. Membership stood at 61.

UNIQUE BERMUDA 2~d OPTD 'GIBRALTAR',

WITH INVERTED WMK, USED TANGIER 1886

From the collection of Richard J. M. Garcia MBE, FRPSL.

Member since 1981. Lives in Gibraltar.

Gibraltar unexpectedly heard from London on 10 December 1885 that it could issue its own postage

stamps as from 1 January. There was no time to prepare them, so provisionally, Bermuda stamps

were overprinted GIBRALTAR, sent out by sea and put on sale on 1 January 1886 at Gibraltar and

Tangier, where the British postal service was controlled from Gibraltar. What an achievement! There

was no time to order a new cancellation stamp for Tangier, so an old worn A26 "killer" was sent

there by Gibraltar Postmistress Margaret Creswell as a stop-gap, and used up to 4 May 1886.