Cape of Good Hope: Kimberley and Cape Town Exhibition
I attach a short write-up with items from the Kimberley Exhibition and from the the Cape Town International Exhibition. According to Goldblatt these items are scarce and only one or two copies are known. However, from my experience more copies are usually found, especially after the publication of literature on the subject.
Anyone has any to share and willing to compare notes?
The tasteless contraption shown in the image I attach is from the front of a postcard showing the Australian exhibit at the Cape Town Exhibition. Large contingents of exhibitors came from Australia as well as Argentina trying to sell canned meat and other similar products. After all the exhibition was shortly after the Boer War and the Army was still buying big.
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"Tasteless" yes, but not back then! I wondered at first if it was not a pre-constructed Church or building spire but no, it is an exhibition stand! I did once build a huge wooden exhibtion stand at Earls Court, London, for Select Software of South Africa's TurboCASH. After that, I swore never again. Since then I did countless shows internationally using lightweight pop-up displays that can be erected almost as quickly as it takes to plug in a PC. Typically, we would arrive at the venue on the evening before the show or early in the morning on opening day. The costs of transporting this "contraption" by ship, train and cart and and then erecting it at an exhibition would have been exorbitant and taken days. What a beast! What did they do with it when the show was over? Take it back to Oz? Unlikely!
I really liked the write-up in the attached PDF file. Readers interested in the Kimberley Exhibition (and the devlopment of industry and commerce in SA) must view it. There are some very nice items enclosed in the PDF. The piece that attracted my attention most was the purple oval 'South African and International Exhibition, Kimberley 1892' cachet on headed notepaper, probably the only such item known. There can't be many of these around. If you have such have a scarce if not rare item you are are encouraged to post it here.
I saw the postcard below recently on a Kenny Napier Auction. My main interest in it is that it appears to be the Latest Recorded Date of that particular GRAHAMS TOWN Hooded Circular Datestamp, a new Latest Recorded Date for GRAHAMS TOWN (* for Time Code, Dot). (It was previously '28 OC 1891'. It is now 'NO 15 91'.) The printed reverse of this postcard is glorious. For obvious reasons at first I confused this postcard's exhibition with the Kimberley Exhibition and thought it appropriate to this thread. It is and it isn't.
The Question is "if the Kimberley Exhibition was held in 1892, why is this postcard cancelled in 1891?" The answer to that is that this postcard is not referring to the Kimberley South African Exhibtion but one held in Port Elizabeth in 1885. The Lesson is that people like me posting advice should first Look and Learn beforee they post comment on a subject. I apologise for this digression!
1891. Printed Postal Stationery Card. GRAHAMS TOWN 'NO 15 01' to KIMBERLEY 'NO 18 91'.
This reveals the latest recorded use of this datestamp and reminds us of a long-forgotten PE exhibition.
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