Colin Fraser who hails from Woodstock in the USA, but who originates from Dundee, came over to provide members with what can only be described as a jaw dropping display of British Central Africa 1891 - 1908. As one member put it afterwards, he was gobsmacked.
In the first part of the display Colin walked us through the period from when the British South Africa Company were responsible for the area through to it becoming British Central Africa. His display contained the 7 Bradbury Wilkinson preparatory essays, perfined specimen and manuscript specimen stamps and covers showing the postal rates applicable in the 1890's. Also shown for the next issue of stamps were die proofs produced by both Bradbury Wilkinson and De La Rue as well as essays of the finished design. The 1895 issue included proofs of the issue by De La Rue using Lithography as well as examples of the stamps and covers showing their usage.

Part 2 of his display took us from 1897 to 1908 beginning with essays of the 1897 issue using Typography by De La Rue, Die proofs and colour trials. Included in this were examples of watermarks both sideways and inverted as well as UPU specimen stamps. Again covers were on display showing the postal usage at the time and also perforate and imperforate stamps. Colin finished up his display with the issue of the 1899 10/- value followed by the colour changes to conform to the UPU and the King Edward VII issues when British Central Africa became Nyasaland in 1903 showing essays of the stamps, which were not known to have been produced.

The first meeting of the new season was the President's display and this was on a topic of 'Around the World in 80 Pages'. The president displayed 2 stamps each from as many countries as possible based on the Scott catalogue within the confines of 80 pages. Initially David explained that tonight's display arose from a large box of world stamps he had collected. The thought behind the idea of the display was 'What can you do in Philately' and 'What can you collect'. David did contact the Guiness Book of Records regarding the display to see if anything like this could be included. Unfortunately the response was that as there was nothing to benchmark it against then it could not be included.
Part 2 of his display centred on one specific country, namely Germany. The display then consisted of 1 page for each different part of German Stamps as defined by the Scott catalogue. This covered the different regions and areas of Germany and included Air Post, semi-postal, official, postal tax and railway stamps. Rounding off this part of the display were stamps related to the German occupation of other countries such as France, Slovenia, Sudetenland, Estonia and Italy to name but a few. The display finished with German Democratic Republic issues under Russian Occupation.
To round off the evening members enjoyed the usual refreshments of cake and tea/coffee.