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Comment on "Airplanes & Airmail in South Africa 1911 - 1925"

Coming Soon to a Screen near You ....

“Airplanes & Airmail in SA 1911 - 1925". (Danie van Zyl.)

ETA: 13th January 2021

This is a small but superbly punchy display on the early Airplanes and the experimental Airmail service in South Africa between 1911 - 1925. It is a pocket-battleship of a display, restricted in size but punching perfectly above its weight. Most collectors who are in the thrall of their display material tend to show more than is necessary. I know this because I have made that mistake. Danie van Zyl has avoided this temptation and given us something that the Swiss have a word for - 'mundgerecht' or mouth-right, neither too big nor too small - just right to comfortably chew on. This display of 48 sheets will tell you all you need to know about its subject without you having to suffer the mediocrity of a plethora of more-of-the-same. If I have not yet made myself clear, I recommend this display to you as an example of the ideal to strive for. I hope that the Club will continue to receive similar displays of this size and quality in future. 

Thanks Danie - I have for some years been looking out for the earliest recorded uses of the 1925 airmail issue on cover or postcard. You illustrate on page 37 a postcard to Miss E Robinson mailed on the day of issue 26 Feb 1925 with the correct 1d airmail stamp plus a 1d union definitive. My records now show 4 cards all to the same addressee - two have the slogan cancel upside down at the bottom of the cover like your cover ( I have one almost identical to yours additionally, as is yours, then cancelled with a circular date stamp at counter number 10 in Cape Town). The other two have the stamps correctly cancelled by the slogan and no counter CDS (one is in the Lester collection ex Barry Smith). So far I have only found one other correspondence correctly paid at the 1d postcard rate on the 26th Feb 1925 - it is illustrated below and is addressed to Mr Holden in Durban - it is on a 1d postal stationery postcard so didn't need the additional King's Head stamp and got a counter cancel at counter 9 earlier in the day at 11am rather than 430pm when the Robinson cards were posted. In between those times the only set on cover I have found so far postmarked on the 26th is a postal history tragedy - although philatelic, the stamps have been separated from the rest of the cover with just part of an airmail label remaining and the correct 2d Kings head stamp for an internal letter -other no doubt exist used on the 26th Feb - would love it if anyone has one to post pics of theirs

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