WW2 Air Mail Letter Card for Australian military personnel for communication with family and friends in Australia. The handstamp "H.M.A. Ships" indicates that the airletter was to be distributed to soldiers serving on one of the ships of the Australian fleet.
New Zealand aerogramme form ("Issued by the New Zealand Post Office for / Posting in New Zealand to Overseas Addresses", on reverse) officially used by The Treasury. Posted at Lambton Quay 4 No 71 to Miami, US.
Boxed handstamp "Postage / Paid / The / Treasury".
This airletter is UK #1c (according to the Greiner catalogue), identifiable by the following features:
- Dotted address lines, with 11 dots per cm
- Line below "If anything is enclosed ..." admonition is 20 mm wide
- Area in which the indicium is printed is 23.5 mm wide
- Rectangular area recessed from overlay to indicate where the sealing flaps have to be fixed to
Greiner specifies October 1943 as the month of issue. Deviating from this, the message on the writing panel is dated September 29, 1943.
The airletter was posted aboard HMC Ship Edmunston, a flower-class corvette operating as a anti-submarine convoy escort, and was addressed to Canada. Interestingly, a regular UK airletter was used instead of one of the military airletter forms.
The airletter was censored and handstamped "From H. M. C. Ship / Examined by DB N 621".
Reference:
Greiner/Greiner, Aerogramme von Europe, 3e, 1993.
At first sight, this cover does not look very interesting at all.
However, this is a meter mark advertising the use of aerogrammes in Turkey.
Turkey issued its first (and as far as I know its only) set of aerogrammes on November 21, 1963. This meter mark is dated July 23, 1963 about four month before the first day of issue of the aerogrammes.
As the sender appears to be a private person, I think the meter mark was applied in a post office, to which the letter was submitted and postage was paid in cash.
The slogan text translates into something like "An aerogramme is handy and inexpensive".
As this blog is about aerogrammes here is one of the aerogrammes (#3) of the set that was issued in 1963.
Aerogramme form with typewritten endorsement "O.H.M.S." (On Her Majesty's Service") sent from the Department of Veterinary Services, Zomba, Nyasaland in July 1958 to the Game Officer at Causeway, Southern Rhodesia.
Oval department handstamp to document the authorized use of the O.H.M.S. service.
This Red Cross Letter Card, intended for use by PoW's, was sent from a civilian in New Zealand to England. Postmarked TAKAPUNA 18 MR 59.
"Air" was endorsed in front of the "Letter Card" type designation to make an airletter out of the letter card.
This was accepted by the New Zealand postal authorities. The taxation "To pay / 4 d. / Double deficiency postage" refers to the fact that the airletter rate was 8 d and the "Air" letter card was only franked with a 6 d stamp.
This air letter was sent in December 1946 to Ghent, Belgium. At this time, air letter service to Belgium was not yet available. As a consequence the air letter was sent by surface mail which is documented by the 3-line handstamp "Air Mail letter Card Service / Not available. Forward / by surface route".
This airletter also proves that the British Empire and British Commonwealth of Nations countries did not at the same time inaugurated air letter servce to a specific country. Australia, for example, had opened air letter service to Belgium already on September 4, 1946.
In addition, the air letter (Wiegand #3c) is rare by itself. It is the 1946 Christmas Greeting issue with a colorful imprint on the writing panel.
Reference
Wiegand, Katalog der Aerogramme von Asien, 2000
One of the previous owners made this note on the reverse:
"Kenya +Uganda. Newly discovered similar to 3 MLS will be catalogued"
I have no idea which catalogue was referred to here. My reference is P. R. Adby, Aerogrammes - Air Mail Letter Card - Air Letters, 1997. This handbook is not easy to handle, but here is a shot:
- Shape A, 125 x 95 mm when folded, single top sealing flap, 1 mm blue border, no security overlay on paper
- Width of "LETTER CARD" on the top of the front panel: 50 mm
- Vertical distance M (in Air Mail, covered by the censor label) to R in "LETTER: 4.5 mm
- Affix instruction is "Stamps / must be / affixed / here", which is Adby's type A-7
- No address lines on front panel
- Blue label in top left corner, "BY AIR MAIL" in white
- red 25 cents KENYA & UGANDA imprint over the Affix instruction (partly covered by the censor label
This is Adby type F1A-3, but there is no match with the listed subtypes. The one closest is F1A-3d. The only difference is that the "25 cents .." imprint on Adby F1A-3d is in blue. The one in the copy above is in red.
I'm
not aware of a more recent catalogue issue, but I have found similar
copies in the "Military Aerogrammes" exhibit of Roggenkämper which is
available online: http://www.aerogramme.com/exhibits/wwmals/ExhF2P12.htm.
Unfortunately, the scans of the exhibit pages are not very clear.
This is a New Zealand Air letter form posted on the first day of the new 6d rate for air letters on Octopber 4, 1948.
The message on the writing panel gives some interesting information about the cachet:
"...
I am forwarding ten similar Air Letter sheets which mark the
inauguration of the reduced Air Letter charge of 6 d, from N.Z. to any
country in the world. The cachet is not official ..."
The sender was James Stapleton, the editor of the New Zealand Airmail Catalogue. The addresse, Francis J. Field a well-known airmail collector and author.
