Information needed Re Postmark dates and 'handwritten' Airmail cache....
Hi all,
I have two covers which I would like your input on. The first has two postmark date stamps on: 'Pretoria 22 Dec A38' and 'Amsterdam-Centr. Station 1938 - 31.x11.18. 58'; the second cover has, drawn on in green pen, 'luftpost By airMail Par Avinion' ... also note the spelling 'Avinion'; shouldn't this be 'Avion'
Regards
Pam
Uploaded files:
The Voortrekker stamps were issued on 14 DEC 1938, so presumably the Pretoria date-stamp is correct, and the year on the Amsterdam date-stamp is wrong. 9 days in transit looks a bit slow, but that may be because of Christmas ....
As for the second cover, it looks as if the writer wasn't very literate - the address is missing a town as well (and probably also a street number ... unless Fru Seiersen was very well-known ....)
Thank you for the response Bas...
Hi Pam,
Starting with the second cover to Denmark, it has been sent at the standard 1938 airmail rate of 1/- (one shilling). It is not at all pretentious. It is a functional piece of mail. Curiously, I answered another query about airmail rates today to Norway in 1939. I did not know the airmail rate to Europe in 1939 last night!
The other cover with all the nice pairs of SA stamps on is more philatelically pretentious. It has been put together like that to appeal to a collector. It probably has more stamps on than were needed to pay the postage. It has been created in the hope that it will have value one day. One sees quite a few of these covers for sale at shows and on the internet. As covers go, I personally would not now buy them at a premium price. That said, I have several which I bought when I was younger and less sure about what I was doing. As you probably know, in the good old bad old days South Africa was a bilingual country with two official languages, English and Afrikaans.(Today it has eleven, I think!) It was a legal requirement on the SA Post Office to observe the bilingual status quo. As a result, today there is a requirement that South African stamps of that era need to be collected in pairs, one English, one Afrikaans. These are sometimes hard to find in good condition. A good place to get them is on First Day Covers or items of mail like yours. So, depending on who you know and how you pitch it, the stamps on your cover might be more valuable as soaked-off pairs than the cover itself. I am sure many will disagree with me.
I hope this is helpful and not too confusing.
Thank you for your thoughts on these two covers Steve, its not confusing at all. It is very interesting and I too now know the airmail rate to Europe.... this is what this forum is all about!
As you rightly say, the pairs of stamps are probably worth more off cover but I have a greater interest in the covers themselves to resort to removing the stamps.... the covers tell a story.... I recently purchased a cover that had three points of interest for me - 1) it had a South Africa stamp 2) addressed to a person on the Isle of Man - which i also collect 3) it also had a SA Christmas label attached - which I also collect....
I also recently purchased a cover which had a full front photo of a flooded area and a set of Natal Flood Relief stamps on... the cover brings a sense of reality to the reason for the stamps...
I didn't realise that there is a requirement, as you say, to collect the old SA stamps in both English and Africaans, although that is what I am automatically doing...
Thank you again for your response
Regards
Pam
What I notice now - unfortunately the quality of your images are poor and cannot be magnified or zoomed into - is that your first cover to Amsterdam appears to have been signed at bottom left. This may add interest and or value to your cover.
Hi Steve
Firstly, my apologies for the poor quality of the photos; I did try to re- do them at the time but with no improvement to size etc... not sure why that is on this occasion because other photos that I uploaded earlier ( same camera and method) when clicked on open full screen in a new tab... but hey ho!
Thank you for your additional comments, I agree, the signatures do add extra interest to the cover...
Regards
Pam
The problem is that if we can't zoom in to see the images, there is little point in sharing them with us. Sorry but..... 'hey ho' ain't good enough. Hopefully, you will have better luck next time.
I attach a bit more info for you, a page from "The Postmarks of South Africa" by Ralph Putzel. You will see that there are two types of circular datestamp Empire Exhibition cancellers. Which one is yours? Also two machine cancelled Empire Exhibition covers with cinderellas that I found yesterday while looking for some SWA material - synchronicity is the name of the game - and an ordinary JIPEX cover. The SACC (South African Colour Catalogue) gives the date for JIPEX as 2nd November 1936. However, JIPEX ran until 14th November, the date of the large cover. Unlike your cover, this bears the more typical JIPEX cancellation. It would be good to see your cover as clearly.
Uploaded files:
Hi Steve,
Good to see the second cover in your last post. The red "PAID" machine cancellation is the first I've seen with the "THE GOLDEN CITY .... " slogan; unfortunately most "PAID" cancellations went straight into the wastepaper basket as the covers were normally stampless.
Unusually, this cover had 3d in stamps applied on top of the red cancellation and was then cancelled with the same slogan cancellation, with the same date (8.I.37) in black.
Can you read the amount paid on the red cancellation? It may be legible where the red cancellation overlies the Empire Exhibition Cinderella. It looks as if it was probably one of a batch of paid covers to destinations in South Africa, which would have paid 1d or ½d. Normally it would have received a postage due cachet when someone noticed that it was addressed to the US; but it looks as if the sender was there at the time and was allowed to put stamps on to pay the surface rate to the USA, which then got cancelled later in black.
No, sorry Bas, I have looked at this under a powerful magnifying glass and can't see anything that looks like a value. I am happy to bring this cover to a SACS meeting for you to examine more closely. Both Empire Exhibition covers were prepared by the Robertson Stamp Co if that helps with your suggestion that "the sender was there at the time", also the method of payment.
Pam, I apologise if I was unnecessarily harsh in my previous reply to you but this thread which you started shows how important a good quality scan is on site like this where we share images and info. Most serious collectors like Bas need to see the detail very clearly.