We’ve been selected to be part of an exciting new project by Simon Hedley (www.SimonHedley.com) , called FreshForms (www.FreshForms.com) that will help people with websites get better results, which for us means we can help you more.

The Kent Federation has decided to hold a special exhibition (KENTPEX 2010) at Tonbridge School on 10 July 2010. There will be a wide range of dealers, special exhibitions and competitions including an exhibition to commemorate the centenary of King George V’s accession to the throne, and other attractions. Further details will follow.

The Maidenhead Heritage Centre is holding a Stamp and Postcard Valuation day at its Centre in Park Street, Maidenhead on Sunday, March 29th between 10.30 am and 2.30 pm. Entry is free but there is a small charge for valuations by our professional stamp experts.

The Hungarian Philatelic Society (HPSGB) will meet in the Town Hall in Thame from 10.00 on Sunday 15 March. Mervyn Benford will give a display on First Inflation and there will be an important auction of Hungarian philatelic material starting at 1.15pm.

For further details on HPSGB go to the the website at www.hpsgb.net

A common question is when were stamps first invented? Why? When were they first used..

Adhesive postage stamps were first used in 1840 in Great Britain. The idea is usually credted to Sir Rowland Hill.

However, the idea of transmitted messages can be traced back at least to Babylonian times (clay tablets etc), and seals and handstamps of various kinds came into use gradually from the Middle Ages onwards. Thus, impressed Revenue stamps and town marks were in use in England in the 17th century.

The adhesive element is thus quite a recent arrival, but the concept has retained the original name of “stamps” from the days of physically stamping the items.

Booklets containing postage stamps were invented towards the end of the 19th century.

We want to say congratulations to www.rtwps.co.uk – the Royal Tunbridge Wells Philatelic Society for being the first Society to take up our offer of a full and detailed listing.

If you’re in the Kent area, they have some great exhibitions and are a very friendly and professional group. We’ve attended a few of their events and are always impressed by the attention to detail of their members.

www.StampClubs.co.uk launches to showcase UK Stamp Clubs and Philtelic Societies.

The site is launching to showcase UK Stamp Clubs and Philtelic Societies, and was thought up nearly 5 years ago.. yes.. we can’t believe it’s taken that long.. but it’s been an interesting 5 years, and we think the wait will have been long enough.

We’ve been working with the team at www.PremierStamps.com to ensure we get the right mix of fun and quality content, building realtionships, and as you can imagine and hopefully appreciate working on the site functionality and design.

We’d love to hear from you, and hope this website will become the number one resource for UK Stamp Clubs.