AS a new recruit to the R.N.L.I. (1968 vintage) I hope that members of long standing are not offended by being told what they have always known. There may be, however, people even greener than myself who might benefit. The reason I think my ideas work is that Appledore branch funds have gone up by five times and other activities by up to 25 times since 1968.

The following means of fund raising involve minimum personnel and at Appledore are done mostly by myself.

Old Money—The old halfpenny and half crown were withdrawn in 1969 and the old penny and threepenny bit in August, 1971.

Banks gave a six-month period of grace during which they would accept these coins from charities but then the coins became apparently worthless. There are still hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of old money being held by the public, often in the mistaken belief that their value will increase dramatically to the collector.

This is quite false unless coins are at least in very fine condition or of rare year—less than one in a thousand. People are unlikely, however, to throw away any coin and so a vast amount is merely tucked away or lost in desks, drawers, etc.

*The author is chairman of the Appledore branch of the R.N.L.I. Captain Lowry, in reminding us that there are 2000 branches in being, including many in populous areas, states: 'I feel that we could get a very good return in time if they all tried to collect.' 364 I thought that the R.N.L.I. should somehow tap this treasure and so I asked the Bank of England if there was any value in these old coins and was told that the Royal Mint would accept them in £ lots of the same kind.

An advertisement was put in the local press appealing for any old money, labels were stuck on collecting boxes and hand-drawn posters distributed. And, very importantly, word was passed round by word of mouth. As a result we now have over 100 half crowns and 4,500 halfpence worth over £21. At the time of writing (early 1972) pennies and threepenny bits are still taken by banks.

The main snag will be getting this money to the Royal Mint but I am waiting for the next R.N.L.I. van to call to start my half hundredweight of coins on their way to the Mint via headquarters. Many branches, particularly those in the south east, probably have members who visit London regularly and who may be prepared to drop in at Life-boat House at intervals with the branch take. If all branches operated on our scale the resultant national collection would be over £30,000.

One of the chief sources of revenue are infant schools, which are always avid collectors. I have even had donations from other charities and these may be a good source, too.

At the same time a lookout should be kept for valuable coins such as Edwardian silver, etc.,and the local numismatic clubs can prove very helpful. We have made over £10 this way.

Foreign Money—At the same time as the appeal for old coins we also asked for foreign money. Generally this is in units too small for banks to handle but we are sometimes able to sell small change to people going abroad.

Branches at ports of entrance from the continent should be able to do a good trade. Remaining coins can be sold to a dealer, if even for only a small amount—it is all profit, or sold on stalls for counters.

Green Shield Stamps—In the last 2 years over 200,000 G.S. stamps have been collected, mainly in specially prepared boxes although they are sometimes found in ordinary life-boat boxes. These can be redeemed at G.S. headquarters at 60p per book. The real value of a book when exchanged for goods at a G.S. gift shop works out at about 70-75p per book. Many people buy odd books off me to make up the number they want and are charged 70p per book or 3 books for £2.

The recent collection of G.S. stamps from Tesco supermarkets organised by the Central Appeals Committee shows, at least in my opinion and in that of several other R.N.L.I, branches in the west country, that returns were somewhat disappointing.

The trouble with supermarkets is that people tend to spend quite a large sum of money at one time and as a result get a lot of stamps. When given a large roll of stamps one is loth to part with them and few people go to a supermarket to spend just a few pennies. The staff of Tesco told me that their customers would rather part with money than stamps! I have found in the last 1 years that people will part with 20 or 30 stamps at a time but seldom more. The best places for collecting are therefore in shops that sell a lot of small items to a lot of customers. I used to get nearly 1,000a week from a pork butcher but, alas, he has nowgiven up. Small grocers, village general stores and stationers and other such small shops make the best hunting grounds.

Postage Stamps—Used postage stamps can make a useful contribution to branch fundsalthough it is a rather long and boring operation preparing them.

Mr Barrie Smale, of Stratford Road, Blacon, Chester, and I have between us raised over £250 in the last 2 years by the sale of postage stamps. Mr. Smale sends out a very large number of approval books to stamp clubs, getting his supplies from people to whom he has written all over the Commonwealth. He also sells foreign stamps to dealers. I deal solely with U.K.

issues passing all Commonwealth and foreign stamps to Mr. Smale. Mr. Smale naturally raises a lot more than I do as Commonwealth are in great demand. If anyone has any contacts in the Commonwealth they could help by asking them to pass local stamps to Mr. Smale at Blacon.£ Used postage stamps. both British and overseas, can help to raise funds for the Institution. It is known that a number of branches have their own outlets, but for those branches who have not, any stamps they may be able to collect would be gratefully received by either Mr. B.

Smale, 28 Stratford Road, Blacon, Chester, or Mr. R. Smart, Flat 18, 81 Oak Hill, Woodford Green, Essex.

Both volunteers collect, grade and dispose of used postage stamps for the funds of the Institution.The following table gives prices paid for U.K.

stamps in September, 1972. All prices are for hundreds of similar stamps which must be clean, undamaged and off the paper. Prices are liable to fluctuate considerably.

2-j and 3p Christmas stamps: 5p-8p.

3p commemoratives: lOp. Definitives: H-5p, 2p-10p, 3p-20p, 4p-20p, 5p-5p, 6p-50p, 9p-50p, 10p-12p, 20p-15p, 50p-£l, Channel Island and Isle of Man low values: 20p to 30p. Regional: 2Jp and 3p, 5p to 6p.

These prices may fall when dealers become saturated with the comparatively new decimal stamps. The common 2-jp and 3p definitives are not worth collecting at 15p per 1,000 nor are the ip and Ip at 20p and 25p per 1,000.

I can deal with about 250 stamps per hour so can choose what are worth going for. The values given above are for the low values. Higher values are naturally more valuable but after 2-j years I have not succeeded in getting 100 good specimens of one kind of any high value commemoratives or Channel Islands. Mr.

Smale, however, disposes of the few good high value commemoratives I get.

Stamps must be floated off paper, dried and pressed and sorted into bundles of 100 of like kind. They must be undamaged (no creases, missing perforations, blemishes or smudged postmarks). The reason I get so few high value commemoratives is that they are used for parcels mainly and are very often damaged and nearly always have heavily smudged parcel postmarks.What is wanted is a light circular cancellation.

I get my stamps from schools, banks, holiday camps during their booking periods in the New Year, from odd firms and also from some very faithful individuals scattered all over the country who have seen our appeal in the Appledore boat-house.

I collect stamps all the year round but prepare them in the winter particularly during the new year when I deal with up to 1,000 envelopes a day mainly from holiday camp bookings. In six weeks in early 1972 I prepared 29,000 stamps for sale—worth about £31. These stamps are, of course, eventually sold for export and so help the country, too! The advantage of this kind of work is that it can be done by people who are house bound or by children..