The Deal Lugger

Here's my latest stamp collage. A very kind freecycler gave me a shoe box full of old stamped envelopes from the 1960s. It had been in his loft for 40 years and he had offered them on our local freecycle site as Postmarks. I thought they might be interesting to use in some of my collages. Among the collection i found a commemmorative envelope featuring a boat know as the Deal Lugger. The Kent Philatelic Societies issued a special commemmorative envelope with postmark on 20th May 1967 showing the boat, and the envelope contained a card with its story. As well as fishing and dredging, the Deal Lugger provided an early ship to shore mail service, and was also apparently involved in some smuggling activities! I've recreated the image and have used some of the other postmarks to suggest the background of Deal, with its castle. You can read the entire story if you look carefully on the edges of the sails. Predominantly British stamps have been used but stamps of many other nations also feature. The birds are from Singapore!