BONCs: How to Display them.
Thanks steve
We philatelists are a patient lot. Thanks for showing some of your recent purchases.
Hi Yannis, nice to hear from you. Thanks. Your comment on my recent purchases allows me to show a new purchase and also another that I failed to win in Kenny Napier's auction, as well as one I did not bid on.
Kenny Napier runs a great auction in SA and the cost of mailing one's winnings to the UK if that is where you live is both flexible and affordable. If any reader is not on Kenny's mailing list, here is his email address. Email Kenny to get on his mailing list.
Here are three items that were recently in Kenny's auction with his description and prices. Hopefully they and the info about them will be of interest to BONC collectors.
LOT 65.
Cape of Good Hope Reg letter with North End 1898 cancel and lovely BONC 78 R350-R400 (Estimate). R300 (Reserve).
Condition very good. Sadly this lovely proving piece got away at R650 (GBP £27.04).
Note: This stunning BONC is misdescribed. It is clearly not '78'!
Cape of Good Hope 1900 censor cover with Petrusville postmark and BONC 280. R250-R300 (Estimate). R200 (Reserve).
Unless this is a scarce BONC, there is no place for a proving cover like this in a serious BONC display.
Cape of Good Hope 1871 cover from Cape Town to Worcester neat barred oval 1 tying 4d seated Hope R350-R400 (Estimated) R300 (Reserve).
This is a fine strike of what is a relatively common BONC 1 on an outer-frame line 4d rectangle of 1865.
It is also a good quality collectable item of J. Perkins' Worcester postal history.
Thanks for the additional information. Condition for all these covers, is also an issue, but given their age and IMHO scarcity are acceptable in a collection but maybe not a competitive exhibit.
Point taken. The cover below is another that is 'interesting' but perhaps unworthy of a top-flight BONC display. However, it is redeeemed to some extent by its unrecorded (as of 09/09/25) single circle datestamp.
1882. Cover with contents. BRAND VLEI 'AU 22 82' via CALVINIA 'AU 25 82' to CAPE TOWN 'AU 29 82'.
A pair of 1d reds making up tuppence postage are obliterated with BRAND VLEI's BONC 195.
The single circle BRAND VLEI datestamp with Time Code letter and double digit Year is unrecorded.
The BONC is unclear and uncertain. What I normally do in such ambiguous situations is try my best with a powerul magnifying glass to determine the BONC number. Only after I have decided on a number do I look it up in the reference works. In this instance, I read '195' which was confirmed by reference to Frescura / Visser and Mordant's BONC studies. As a result of their confirmation of my study of the BONC's numeral I feel confident in stating that "this is a proving cover showing Brand Vlei's use of BONC 195." I have seen some sellers claim that an item is a "proving cover" when the BONC itself is illegible. I do not buy these and advise you to do the same.
This is a hi-res view of one of the stamps showing BONC 195.
BRAND VLEI is "a town in southern Bushmanland some 140 kms northeast of Calvinia", according to the card it came attached to. It also adds that "Tradition has it that the town was named after a trekboer, 'Old Brand', who used to regularly outspan next to the huge vlei which today supports a large salt-exporting industry". In 1929 Malcolm Campbell famously attempted to break the World Land Speed Record at Verneukpan, a dry vlei, in the district of Kenhardt, about 80 km north. As Brand Vlei is in the district of Calvinia, the latter is its Head Office according to Putzel's 'Encyclopedia of SA Post Offices'. The cover above travelled from BRAND VLEI via CALVINIA to CAPE TOWN. Below is a part of the correspondence to Burmester in Cape Town.
Letter headed "Brand Vley 18/8 82. dist (rict) Calvinia."
Next is just a bit of fun which has nothing to do with BONCS but everything to do with Calvinia.
1903. Cover. CALVINIA 'FE 12 x3' to CAPE TOWN 'FE 14 0x' where 'x' is blank.
Here's another in the same vein - unclear and uncertain to the naked eye. In this BONC 17 example from George, the second shown in this Topic, the '17' can only really be seen with excellent eyesight or a magnifying glass. Nevertheless, it is BONC 17 and a proving cover to boot. It would be a pretty perfect item of postal history if the BONC and datestamp were stronger and more obvious. So, the question remains, is it good enough to display? Yes, to your pals at club and Society display level but NOT in a top-end display or competition.
1883. Cover with content. GEORGE 'OC 28 83' to CAPE TOWN 'OC 30 83'.
2d bistre obliterated with George's BONC 17.
This very nice Newspaper wrapper cancelled with BONC 1343 has come up for sale on Kenny Napier's Pretoria Stamp Auction, Saturday 1st November 2025. It shows that perhaps BONC 1343 was used by a Newspaper Branch of the PO. At present, this BONC numeral is not identified in David Mordant's latest Fourth Edition of 'BONCS of the CoGH'. (FREE to download as PDF from DISPLAYS, top.) It clearly comes from a Cape town that had a newspaper worthy of being subscribed to. So, which town is it likely to have originated in?
LOT 83
Cape of Good Hope newspaper wrapper with clear BONC 1343, unknown origin, possibly Newspaper Branch
Estimated R350-R400 Reserve R300
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Without a dispatch datestamp or some post office BONC records yet to be discovered we are unlikely to work this out. Unlike standard mail, newspaper wrappers are seen cancelled with BONCs but invariably not dispatch datestamped. My best guess is that this was not used in Cape Town. Wherever Lenon Ltd was situated in Adderley Street, (Cape Town's main throughfare), most likely close to the central part near the station, GPO and bank, it was never much more than a five minute walk away from either the Argus or Cape Times newspaper's printing works. It doesn't make much sense for a them to subscribe to a newspaper mailing service from a source so close to hand. However, if they were subscribing to a Port Elizabeth newspaper it makes mush more sense. It should be remembered that PE, the 'Windy City', was the the home of Lennon Ltd where it was founded in 1850.
- B. G. Lennon & Co., Ltd, a chemist and druggist, was established in Port Elizabeth in 1850 by Barry Grey Lennon, an Irish chemist and the nephew of Sir George Grey, Governor of Cape of Good Hope.
- Lennon Ltd grew to have branches in all major towns of the Cape, Natal, OFS and ZAR. In 1894 it opened the first pharmacy in Bulawayo. By 1930 it was the largest pharmaceutical business in the southern hemisphere.
- In 1920 Lennon Ltd had three branches in Cape Town. (One show left. )As the leading colonial and Union chemist / pharmaceutical supplier the various medical institutions on Robben Island were its customers.
However, Putzel does not show PE having a newspaper branch, not do Frescura and Visser. So.... help!
Here's another interesting BONC from a recent Kenny Napier auction.
This proving cover is a Cape of Good Hope 1d postal stationery envelope. It has been uprated to 6d with 5 x 1d Hope Standing stamps to pay for a Registered letter from Flagstaff, Cape Colony, 'SP 9 97' (?) to Johannesburg, all cancelled with BONC 304. Very nice!
Cape of Good Hope small size uprated postal stationary 1897 registered to Johannesburg, with clear BONC 304 strikes
and proving Flagstaff cancel, backstamped Mount Ayliff and Kokstad
Here is another BONC from Kenny Napier's auctions.
Kenny has accurately described it as "Cape of Good Hope Official embossed pre-paid envelope 1902 with Robben Island postmark and BONC 158. Also stamped with a purple V(Victory?)". This item sold for R1400 or GBP £61.50, a lot for such a poor cover. This is considerably less than the R2600 amount pencilled in on the cover, presumably by the owner or the dealer he bought it from.
There is currently much interest in Robben Island postal history due to it being the Apartheid-era prison where Nelson Mandela spent most of his 27 years in jail. The item below is a nice item of postal stationery travelling to Holland with a mysterious purple 'V'. It has much to commend it BUT NOT its "superb Robben Island BONC" nor is it (strictly speaking) from the Boer War which ended on 31st May 1902. The BONC is almost illegible. You would be hard-pressed to know that it is BONC 158 without turning to a reference book first. As such the BONC adds very little to this cover. However, the small single circle Robben Island datestamp is a nice example of this unscarce postmark. If this BONC were more legible the cover would be worth the money paid!
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The handwritten description is not Kenny's!!!
The original brief was to describe 'How (best) to display BONCs'. Looking at the preceding, most of the material shown comprises postal history ie. BONCs on proving cover with an accompanying town datestamp. This seems fundamental to any display on the subject.
Previously, I suggested that any BONC display should comprise some or all of the following:
Proving pieces that show the relationship between numeral BONCs and town datestamp,
A description of the BONC ie. early thick 9 Bar, later thin 13 Bar or duplex, etc., etc.,
A description of the BONC's accompanying town datestamp when shown on proving piece,
Legible strikes of BONCs on stamps annotated with town names referencing Frescura or Mordant,
Earliest / Last recorded dates of BONC use - again referencing Mordant and Fresura as references,
Examples of multiple town use ie. BONCs known used variously in differenr places at different times.
The following cover meets some of these criteria. It is good, clean attractive example of an item of postal history. If an item is scruffy but genuinely unique it can IMO be displayed anywhere but if it is a common item you should try to find a better, more presntable example.
1895. Registered Letter and Proving Cover. KIMBERLEY '8 23 95' (????) to JOHANNESBURG ZAR '24 AUG 95'.
4d CoGH Registered Letter stationery uprated 4d (4 x 1893 1d 'Hope standing'), total 8d postage paid.
Stamps cancelled with Kimberely BONC 227 (thick 9 Bar). (Goldblatt, Frescura, Mordant).
BONC 227 (3.3.3) ER: 22 AP 1891. LR: 11 AQP 1903. (Frescura).
Dispatched KIMBERLEY with REGISTERED KIMBERLEY datestamp.
Received JOHANNESBURG ZAR with GEREGISTREERD JOHANNESBURG datestamp.
1895. CoGH REGISTERED (front) and ZAR GEREGISTREERD Datestamps.
The ZAR example is particularly fine.
Some Background.
Kimberley in the Cape Colony was the first mining boon town in South Africa, The money made there from diamonds funded the later discovery of the Witwatersrand goldfields in the Boer's ZAR (Transvaal). Capitalism and British imperialismn travelled hand-in hand from Kimberley to Johannesburg. When this letter was written in 1895, Johannesburg was a booming gold-mining town not in the Cape Colony but in the Boer's ZAR (Transvaal) where the lack of political influence became a huge problem for free market capitalists and British imperialists alike.
Tensions rose between the Boer government and wealthy British and foreign immigrants (Uitlanders) who owned the mines but lacked both political rights and government support. The Reform Committee was created as a subversive tool by the Randlords to ostensibly agitate for political rights but whose real intent was a cover to overthrow Boer authority. The Boers were hostile to uncontrolled capital investment and any loss of their political control. Formed in late 1895, the Reform Committee demanded voting rights for immigrants, a fair constitution and an independent judiciary. The committee was spearheaded by Lionel Phillips (President and Randlord), John Hays Hammond (a prominent American engineer), and Colonel Frank Rhodes, the brother of Cecil John Rhodes, diamond and gold magnate and Cape Colony Prime Minister. The committee was intimately tied to the Jameson Raid (Dec 29 1895 – Jan 2 1896), an attempted coup funded by the mining elite (Randlords) to overthrow the ZAR government. It collapsed almost as soon as it started and Lionel Phillips and other committee members were arrested and put on trial by the ZAR. It is not known who W A Phillips, the addressee of this letter, was but had he remained in Johannesburg over Christmas 1895 and New Year 1896 he would have experienced the Jameson Road firsthand. Its most notable consequence was a huge Boer investment in modern weapons from France and Germany,