Quote from Steve on July 6, 2025, 12:35 pm

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).

My bid: R600
Condition very good. Sadly this lovely proving piece got away at R650 (GBP £27.04).

This is probably a good price for what is believed to be the unusual and scarce BONC 76.
Note: This stunning BONC is misdescribed. It is clearly not '78'!

 

LOT 66.
Cape of Good Hope 1900 censor cover with Petrusville postmark and BONC 280. R250-R300 (Estimate). R200 (Reserve).

 

 

I did not bid on this and do not know how much it sold for or indeed if it sold at all.

The cover is stained, the stamp torn and the BONC while legible is almost too faint to read without a magnifying glass.
Unless this is a scarce BONC, there is no place for a proving cover like this  in a serious BONC display.

LOT 143
Cape of Good Hope 1871 cover from Cape Town to Worcester neat barred oval 1 tying 4d seated Hope R350-R400 (Estimated) R300 (Reserve).

 

 

My Winning Bid: R500. At today's RoE R500 is GBP £20.85.
This is a fine strike of what is a relatively common BONC 1 on an outer-frame line 4d rectangle of 1865.

The cover is little grubby but overall it is in good condition, clean and not worn, torn or stressed.
It is also a good quality collectable item of J. Perkins' Worcester postal history.

This was possibly a bit expensive given its relative ordinariness.

Quote from yannisl on July 7, 2025, 7:30 am

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. 

Quote from Steve on September 9, 2025, 10:28 am

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. 

Quote from Steve on September 9, 2025, 12:59 pm

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.