The Dixie Beavers Regional Group meets to exchange information about the stamps and postal history of British North America, and to meet and renew acquaintances with fellow BNAPS members. The meetings are scheduled in conjunction with philatelic exhibitions in the region.

Dixie Beavers Make Strong Showing in Atlanta, Georgia

Eight Dixie Beavers and three guests met in Atlanta at the Southeastern Stamp Expo on the last weekend of January. There were enough BNA exhibits to fill an entire row in the exhibit hall and member Jane Sodero came away with seven awards, including three of the BNAPS Awards, which also included the Best BNA Award.

John Burnett presented a program at the meeting, "Canada -Usages of the Issues of 1937-1942 both Domestically and to the USA". Burnett's program was meant to teach that it is possible to put together a reasonable exhibit without breaking the bank. In his presentation Burnett pointed out that no cover shown had cost him more than $10, but both exhibiting and writing about them had driven their value up.

The presence of the Dixie Beavers is starting to be noticed by the dealers as many had Canadian material out at the bourse. The dearth of Canadian material has been an issue for BNAPSers for a few years but this year we had material to browse and buy, and buy we did.

The show in Atlanta is one of the best in the South east USA and the group has decided to have another regional meeting at the next Atlanta show. The hotel offers a great price and throws in a free breakfast for attendees. The show provides a hospitality suite with libations and snacks each evening

This year's show had a great jury including noted Canadian jurist Sam Chiu who had just returned from the Far East where he attended an FIP meeting.

John Burnett made note that while many Canadian collectors were experiencing an Arctic Vortex he was enjoying jacket weather. He made note that a major show is in Florida the following week and what a nice vacation that would make from some of the ice and snow you might be experiencing.

Below are shown some pictures of the meeting

John Burnett presenting his Mufti exhibit material at Saturday's regional meeting

C.A. Stillions and Jane Sodero hold a discussion at dinner on Saturday evening just before Jane walked off with seven awards

BNAPSer Dennis Amos (on right) and frequent guest Robert Rentch (on left) enjoy the dinner at the awards banquet

C.A. Stillions makes a presentation on two new Newfoundland books being published by BNAPS at the Saturday meeting

Long time philatelic author, Gary Lowe, joined the Dixie beavers for dinner at the Awards banquet

Dixie Beavers Meet in Charlotte, North Carolina

The Dixie Beavers had their semi-annual regional meeting at CHARPEX, in Charlotte, North Carolina where nine members and their guests had a very nice social and educational meeting. The venue is at the Piedmont Community College and is a great meeting location with superb lighting and meeting rooms. The dealer bourse is very good and there were dealers who are now bringing Canadian material to the show as the Dixie Beavers attendance and requests for Canadian material is being heard.

CHARPEX was the host of the German Philatelic and British North America (Regional) Philatelic Societies. BNAPS members made up a large portion the exhibits with C.A. Stillions getting a Large Gold medal for his excellent "Newfoundland's Last Definitive's: The Perkins Bacon and Sprague Printings" and John Burnett a Gold for his "Usage of the Stamps of 1937-1942". Other members took home medals for non BNA material.

During the meeting, John Burnett put on a PowerPoint presentation on his 1937-42 material. C.A. Stillions discussed a couple of SS Eros covers he has acquired that add to the census of covers and to date one is the only Newfoundland cover to be reported from the sinking of the Eros and the other the only cover from Great Britain (it was being forwarded back to Great Britain) to be reported.

John Burnett was able to acquire another SS Eros cover originating in Japan, addressed to England (via fastest route) transiting through Canada to join Eros in Quebec. Burnett said he believed this was the only Far East cover recovered from Eros. These three covers are important enough to the Eros story that it was decided a follow up article must be written and submitted to Topics for publication.

The Dixie Beavers plan their next regional meeting in Atlanta in January 2019. Burnett encourages all members living in the South East USA to come to the Atlanta meeting as the show hotel has granted excellent rates (less than $100 in Atlanta) and a free full English breakfast for each day stayed.

Following are photos of the presentation.

Charlotte Meeting

Dixie Beavers held a regional meeting at the South East Regional Stamp Show in Atlanta Georgia

The Dixie Beavers met at the South East Regional Stamp Show in Atlanta Georgia on Saturday, January 27, 2018 at noon in the Hilton Hotel. This hotel is just a great venue, it has given the APS a rate of only $97 and that includes a full hot breakfast, a really fantastic rate for a city the size of Atlanta.

Only four BNAPS members showed up but 8 guests were also in attendance. The twelve of us had a small show and tell, a discussion on the need for a new 2-4 frame classification at American Philatelic society WSP shows.

John Burnett then made a presentation on the "Little Known facts of WWII" using Canadian postal history to support his facts.

Pictured in figure 1is John speaking to the audience. I noted that the interest in this subject was high with one Philadelphia attendee asking for a copy to be put on at their local club in the future; Burnett made a copy of his flash drive and gave it to the visitor.

Figures 2-5 are examples of Burnett's talk. Figure 2 tells the story of Canada's longest wartime battle, figure 3 the story of 27,000 people repatriated by MS Gripsholm and some of the sad tales that were included, figure 4 the story of CANLOAN and the Dunkirk evacuation, and figure 5 about how the allies used the letter "V" and how the Axis tried to thwart it.

It was decided that the Dixie group would meet in Charlotte, North Carolina at the Charpex show in late July 2018.

The Saturday Awards banquet was highlighted when John received the South East Regional Group's Rowland Hill Lifetime Achievement Award for service to the South East Federation and to Philately in General. John is shown in figure 6 receiving his award.

John was interviewed and said he had no idea that he had such a positive influence on collectors, it was emphasized when it was announced and he received a standing ovation that lasted for a few minutes.

Following are photos of the presentation.

John Burnett speaking

John Burnett gets Award

Figure 2

Figure 3

Figure 4

Figure 5

Dixie Beavers held a regional meeting at CHARPEX 2017 in Charlotte, North Carolina July 29, 2017

The Dixie Beavers held a regional meeting at CHARPEX 2017 in Charlotte, North Carolina. There were four BNAPS members present and three guests.

Member Don MacKenzie discussed a study he is making on the Dumb cancels of WWII, John Burnett showed his ever growing collection of Bulova watch illustrated covers and noted that he has now found two completely different cachets. He also reported that all the covers except two are located in Ontario with the vast majority from the mid-Ontario area. To date he has found only one from the west (Winnipeg) and one from the Maritimes (New Brunswick).

Below is an illustration of the new design he has found and a close up of the logo. To date Burnett has identified eleven distinct designs of cachets for the Bulova watch Company; this does not include the illustrated post cards that jewelers used to notify customers that their item was ready for pick up. His big question is how to tell a story with them in an exhibit.

After the show and tell session Burnett put on a PowerPoint program entitled ?Stamps and Covers with Stories?. This program documents the stories behind the stamps or covers that John has in his collection, the high light being his block of ten of the 5c slate green small queen given to him by former BNAPSer Abe Charkow of Vancouver, this is also pictured below.

A discussion followed on our next meeting as there is a conflict. The APS will be holding a WSP show in Birmingham Alabama in February 2018 and the South east regional Show is held in Atlanta at the end of January 2018. The group decided to continue to support the Atlanta show, mainly because they have supported us and have a committed hotel rate that makes Atlanta very affordable for the weekend.

Following are photos of the presentation.

Bulova card

Bulova Card

5c Slate Green

Dixie Beavers have record number of attendees in Atlanta

The Dixie Beavers saw 16 members and guests attend their January 28 meeting during the South East Regional Stamp Show in Atlanta, Georgia. The group was also able to recruit one new member for BNAPS and saw three members for the first time who had never attended any BNAPS function before.

The Group has made their meetings into a social event, with much camaraderie and fun had by all. John Burnett spoke on the subject of 'Little Known Facts of WWII as Shown By Her Mail'.

The show featured three BNAPSer exhibits with C.A. Stillions and Dennis Amos both garnering a Gold medal and John Burnett a large Vermeil. The show was the very first National show to utilize the new APS point system for judging, and everyone seemed very pleased with the new system.

The Dixie Beavers will meet next summer at the Charlotte North Carolina show, CHARPEX, to be held July 29-30 in Worrell Hall on the campus of Central Piedmont Community College. This is a fun show held in an auditorium with nearly perfect lighting for a philatelic exhibition. There is no charge to exhibitors for frames and the judging is always of the highest caliber.

Following are photos of the meeting and show.

C.A. Stillions shopping for Newfy covers

Dennis Amos and Robert Rentch looking at the Champion of Champion exhibit

Don Mackenzie shopping for dumb cancels of WWII

John Burnett (on the right) receives a thank you from Gary Lowe on behalf of the SERSS

The group attending the meeting

Five members of BNAPS and one guest residing in southeast United States met on July 30 at CHARPEX, a dealer bourse and philatelic exhibition sponsored by the Charlotte Philatelic Society. All members have expressed much interest in continuing to meet at CHARPEX as the show is really very good, the exhibits are way above average, and the venue is superb. We all want to congratulate the members of the Charlotte Philatelic Society for being such great hosts. The club does not charge a frame fee for exhibitors, and provides some of the highest quality judges available to the American Philatelic Society. In addition every exhibitor receives an engraved glass souvenir plate; I now have service for four at our house.

Our program commenced with a program put on by Dixie Beaver Chairman John Burnett. This year's program was a review of last year's on the Montreal Telegraph covers he had accumulated and used to create a new exhibit. The exhibit was on display at CHARPEX and garnered a gold medal, one of only four at the show. John also showed enough new cover discoveries on the Montreal Telegraph Company to form another frame of the covers. John had a "walk through" on the exhibit floor with the members after the meeting.

John then turned the subject to a new accumulation on "Illustrated Covers of the Bulova Watch Company" in Canada. He passed around 31 examples of Bulova covers all from different jewelers but also from a very small geographic area. A lot of questions as to "were there any from Western Canada?" All the examples were from Ontario and a couple from the Maritimes. John stated he hadn't found any to date.

The Dixie Beavers hope to meet on an informal basis in Atlanta in January 2017 as the show is once again out of downtown Atlanta and much easier to find.

This is the fifth year of the existence of the Dixie Beavers with not a lot of growth. It is disappointing but we will keep working at trying to get the folks in the southeast to join in the meetings.

From left: Mike Lampson, Don Mackenzie, Gene Zhiss, Dennis Amos, John Burnett, and Dan Chaij, a guest and noted Cuban specialist

John Burnett presenting

Attendees at the Dixie Beavers meeting

Bulova cover examples

Bulova cover examples

Seven members of BNAPS residing in southeast United States met on July 25 at CHARPEX, a dealer bourse and philatelic exhibition sponsored by the Charlotte Philatelic Society in North Carolina. All members have expressed much interest in continuing to meet at CHARPEX as the show is really very good, the exhibits are way above average, and the venue is superb. We all want to congratulate the members of the Charlotte Philatelic Society for being such great hosts. The club does not charge a frame fee for exhibitors, and provides some of the highest quality judges available to the American Philatelic Society.

Our program commenced with a short show-and-tell followed by a program put on by Dixie Beavers Chairman John Burnett. The program this year was about a new collection John is forming on "Telegraph Covers", a subject that lacks any written background material and is one needing a lot of original research. John noted that longtime BNAPSer Bill Walton had provided him with a copy of just about all there was to read about telegraph covers.

John confined his talk to the Montreal Telegraph Company. He showed thirteen Montreal Telegraph Co. covers, all different in design, and speculated there must be more out there. Besides the logo varieties illustrated below, he has found two other colors and several types of embossed logos.

Logos found include dark background, light background and thick versus thin arm.

Logos come in several colors and include various fancy filigrees under the design.

The group spent a lot of time trying to remember high school Latin to finally translate the company's logo (FULMINIS OCIOR ALIS) into contemporary English. With the help of Google, we came up with faster (speedier) than a lightning bolt.

Here are photos of our meeting.

John Burnett addressing the Dixie Beavers.	Dennis Amos and Mike Lampson trying to read the Latin logo of the Montreal Telegraph Company.
	Don Mackenzie and Dennis Amos looking at Montreal Telegraph Company covers.