Volume 30 Issue 3 TORCH BEARER 1924 1896 1928 1900 1932 1904 1936 1908 1940 1912 1944 1916 1948 1920 1952 1924 1956 1928 1960 1932 1964 1936 1968 CIAMMnwiloola CIAANCIN .ONWT. 1940 NSW OLYMPIC STAMM 1972 1944 1976 1948 1980 1952 1984 1956 1988 1960 1992 1964 1994 1968 1998 1972 2002 1976 2006 1980 2010 1984 2014 1988 2018 1992 1996 2000 2004 2008 2012 2016 SOCIETY of OLYMPIC 2020 COLLECTORS SOCIETY of OLYMPIC COLLECTORS YOUR COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN Bob Farley, 3 Wain Green, Long Meadow, AND EDITOR : Worcester, WR4 OHP, Great Britain. [email protected] VICE CHAIRMAN : Bob Wilcock, 24 Hamilton Crescent, Brentwood, Essex, CM14 5 ES, Great Britain. [email protected] SECRETARY : Miss Paula Burger, 19 Hanbury Path, Sheerwater, Woking, Surrey, GU21 5RB Great Britain. TREASURER AND David Frome, 129 Leicester Road, ADVERTISING : Herts, EN5 5EA [email protected] AUCTION MANAGER : John Crowther, 3 Hill Drive, Handforth, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 3AP, Great Britain. [email protected] AUCTION COMPILER Chris Cohen, 3 Cowham Close, Alfreton, Derbyshire DE55 7HG [email protected] DISTRIBUTION MANAGER, Ken Cook, 31 Thorn Lane, Rainham, Essex, BACK ISSUES and RM13 9SJ, Great Britain. [email protected] LIBRARIAN : PACKET MANAGER Brian Hammond, 6 Lanark Road, Ipswich, IP4 3EH [email protected] WEB MANAGER Mike Pagnomenos [email protected] P. R. 0. Andy Potter [email protected] BACK ISSUES: At present, most issues of TORCH BEARER are still available to Volume 1, Issue 1, (March 1984), although some are now exhausted. As stocks of each issue run out, they will not be reprinted. It is Society policy to ensure that new members will be able to purchase back issues for a four year period, but we do not guarantee stocks for longer than this. Back issues cost £2.00 each, or £8.00 for a year's issues to Volume 24, and £2.50 per issue, from Volume 25 except Vol.25 issue 4b which is £4.00 and Volume 27 Issue 1 which is £6.00. If ordering single copies, please indicate which volume you require. UK Cheques should be made payable to the SOCIETY of OLYMPIC COLLECTORS and sent with your order to David Buxton at the above address. Overseas payments should be made in £ Sterling by PayPal. Postage raters per issue are:UK £0.60, Europe £2.30, World £3.40 LIBRARY: Photocopies of articles are availble through the Librarian at 10 pence per sheet. Please enclose payment with the order. Books may be borrowed, but postage must be paid IN BOTH DIRECTIONS. The Librarian's address is listed above. COPY DATES: TORCH BEARER is published four times a year; in March, June, September and December. Articles or adverts for inclusion in a particular issue should be sent at least two months in advance. TORCH BEARER ISSN 09-1 2 i VOLUME 30 SEPTEMBER 2013 ISSUE 3 CONTENTS Front Page 98 London 2012 cancels : Large and Small Varieties 99 125th. 1.0.C, Session, Buenos Aires 102 The Four Minute Mile - the Olympic Connection 105 XXII Olympic Winter Games in Sochi 121 As F.I.P.O. no longer exists, the logo that featured on the cover of Torch Bearer is no longer available. The representation of the Olympic rings that was permitted through membership of F.I.P.O. can no longer be used. We feel that a logo to represent the Society of Olympic Collectors would be beneficial, and would like to invite members to submit potential designs. Designs must avoid the use of Olympic property (such as the rings). Ideally, a new logo should be suitable for reproduction across a wide range of sizes. If multiple designs are received, members will be asked for their views. A small prize will be awarded for any design submitted that is adopted . MEMBERSHIP OF THE SOCIETY OF OLYMPIC COLLECTORS Membership starts on election, of which applicants will be notified, and will last for one calendar year. All back issues of the magazine for the current year will be sent to members joining during the year. Junior members are those aged under 18 years in the year of joining, subscription rates are half of the adult rate until the 18th birthday. All applications should be made to the Secretary. Subscription rates for 2013 are: United Kingdom £15.00; PayPal £16.00. Europe, PayPal £22.00, € 30.00. Outside Europe, PayPal £27.00, €35.00, $US 45.00 Acceptable forms of payment: $US, or € currency notes; 97 Front Page I am pleased to welcome two new members to the committee of the society following our recent appeals. David Frome joins us as treasurer, and will assume a full role in December when formalities are completed for the mandates on the societies banking arrangements. Accounts for 2012 incorporating our activities at Olympex, and integrating the auction and packet accounts are close to finalisation to enable a smooth transition to David.. Bob Wilcock has carried out extensive work to reach this position, and a number of you may receive requests to replace out of date cheques that have not been presented as a result of the death of David Buxton and the ill health of John Crowther. We believe that all payments due to vendors for the auction and packet have been identified and issued. If you feel that a payment has been missed please contact Bob Wilcock. For an interim period, please refrain from making payment by PayPal to [email protected]. Please contact either Bob Wilcock or Bof Farley for alternative PayPal options. Chris Cohen joins us to assist with the auction , although with the current state of John's health he is likely to be taking a leading role. It is intended to relaunch the auction with the December issue of Torch Bearer, and lots are invited for sale. I am sure that there are a number of members out there who have missed the opportunity to purchase through 2013, just waiting to see what gems are offered. It is intended to trial illustrations within the auction catalogue, and possibly feature any interesting item from each auction in Torch Bearer where an article is appropriate. The circulating packet is proving popular with purchasers, and recent packets have been withdrawn before completing their circuits because the amount of material remaining is so small. Brian Hammond would be very pleased to hear from members wishing to join the packet as buyers, and is in constant need of new material from vendors. 2013 has been a difficult year, and it is fortunate that the events of 2013 did not coincide with London 2012. With a full strength committee, we can look forward with confidence to 2014, 98 London 2012 cancels : Large and Small Varieties In the last issue of Torch Bearer (p.93) I reported an apparent error whereby the Gold Medal Winner 'flag' cancel was elongated, on 2 August. An eagle-eyed reader of a similar article in stamp and Coin Mart contacted me to say that he had an elongated cancel for a Paralympic date. Scrutiny of lots of covers showed that the elongated version was turning up everywhere, and a picture began to emerge.Royal Mail had been very circumspect when approached originally, but this time the Handstamp Centre at Tallents House quickly confirmed the following: For both Olympic and Paralympic cancels "Bulk Mailings which were received at Tallents House were cancelled with an Ink Jet Printer which uses a postmark downloaded from a pdf. All covers that were sent to the SHC's were cancelled with a foil. [This resulted in] two varieties 29mm — Edinburgh, 23mm All other SHCs " As the illustrations show [illustration shows if just one is used] the difference is quite marked. 99 London 2012 Paralvmolc Game =1::lV"-■741;•■ ..17.111Z brat LOWT11213 CNN/ 74 0.0[141n. ADO "d SEP 2Z1', LONDON 2012 It is perhaps surprising that such a huge difference has gone un-noticed for so long, but the way the three strikes of the cancel are applied by Tallents House, over the stamps and sheet edge does not make it obvious. Dealers will mostly have just the one type, as will collectors who bought official covers through the Bureau. Most collectors who prepared their own covers will just have had the one type, the small cancel, so most collectors will not have had anything to compare. So the large cancel is not a scarce error, as first reported. Currently on the internet, covers with the large cancel are much more common than those with the small cancel, but both are probably rare for dates other than the dates that stamps were issued. There was no official issue for those dates, and probably not many bulk sendings. The commonest source of the small variety for all dates is probably covers and cards posted at Olympex 2012. First Day Covers mailed at the Olympic and Paralympic postal offices and the Press Centre will also have the small variety. Torch Relay Alternative Cancels A similar difference is apparent with the four "Torch Grille" design cancels for Cardiff, Belfast, Edinburgh and London originally intended only for Royal Mail's own souvenir covers for the Torch Relay, but belatedly made available for collectors' covers and cards through the Special Handstamp Centres. The four official covers were a limited issue of just 2012 numbered covers. Four examples recently on eBay sold for quite a bit more than the (expensive) Royal Mail issue price. I suspect there are far fewer collectors' covers with the smaller cancels. More research is needed to establish whether similar differences exist for other London 2012 cancels—please let us know what you find.