To further my interest, I had joined SIPA, South Indian Philately Association quite some time back and have been attending it's monthly meeting fairly regularly. These meetings are held at the Philatelic Bureau building, Mount Road on every 2nd Sunday. Today's meeting was interesting and here is an update.
Mr. Balakrishna Das's announced tomorrow's special function on the occasion of Philatelic Week and the release of two special covers.
Mr. Nelson, Secretary SIPA, has taken on the onerous task of covering all the countries of the world from the Philately point-of-view. Today's segment was about "Andorra", the 9th country he is covering. It is interesting to note that many collectors collect stamps from countries that they cannot really locate on a map. Andorra is one such country. It is jointly governed by Spain and France and is sandwiched between the two, in the Pyrenees mountains. It issues stamps from either the French side (with the text Correos Andorra) or from the Spanish side (with the text Andorra). Did you know that selling stamps is one of the key revenue streams for the country? It has issued around 1000 stamps so far.
Mr. G. Ram Mohan whose primary theme is "Subashithani" (timeless quotes/words of wisdom that are represented in stamps). Today he spoke about his Civil Engineering background and his passion for minerals and Gems. A Mineral can be considered a Gem provided it satisfies criteria like Clarity, Rarity etc. and India has always considered the Navarathnas as special. He also prepared a one frame exhibit on Gems - the hardest part being mounting 3D gems onto stamp sheets. You can read about a recent newpaper article about his collection here.
Mr Hemanchandra Rao spoke about the centenary of Panama canal and his most favorite topic: ships. He also compared Chennai's Buckingham canal and Panama canal. Buckingham Canal is far older and probably involved many hardships and menial labour to build. While other countries are clamouring to issue stamps on the 100th anniversary of Panama Canal, we hardly pay attention to our own history. Mr. Rao is a mine of information and you can see a write-up on his interests here. On a lighter note, see this news about Egypt confusing Suez and Panama canals when issuing a stamp recently :)
Meeting came to an end with Mr. Mahesh's short speech on how Philately as a hobby benefits youngsters.
Mr. Balakrishna Das's announced tomorrow's special function on the occasion of Philatelic Week and the release of two special covers.
Mr. G. Ram Mohan whose primary theme is "Subashithani" (timeless quotes/words of wisdom that are represented in stamps). Today he spoke about his Civil Engineering background and his passion for minerals and Gems. A Mineral can be considered a Gem provided it satisfies criteria like Clarity, Rarity etc. and India has always considered the Navarathnas as special. He also prepared a one frame exhibit on Gems - the hardest part being mounting 3D gems onto stamp sheets. You can read about a recent newpaper article about his collection here.
Mr Hemanchandra Rao spoke about the centenary of Panama canal and his most favorite topic: ships. He also compared Chennai's Buckingham canal and Panama canal. Buckingham Canal is far older and probably involved many hardships and menial labour to build. While other countries are clamouring to issue stamps on the 100th anniversary of Panama Canal, we hardly pay attention to our own history. Mr. Rao is a mine of information and you can see a write-up on his interests here. On a lighter note, see this news about Egypt confusing Suez and Panama canals when issuing a stamp recently :)
Meeting came to an end with Mr. Mahesh's short speech on how Philately as a hobby benefits youngsters.
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