Random Offers - quirky and unusual - Week 47.

It was a busy weekend, partly dealing with customer orders for discount postage so this is the first offer for this week.  Update: second offer added (E)

D. Ephemera mixed bag, pick and choose - Free to blog followers!

D1 - Machin black postcard from the National Postal Museum 1981, printed by the House of Questa, issued to mark Ten Years of Decimal Machins.  [One available].

D2. - Machin blackprint by Harrison & Sons 15 February 1971 [One available].

D3. - British Postal Order Gift Card (undated).  Designed to hold a standard postal order of the time in the same way as Book Tokens and Store Gift Cards, for sending through the post.  [Three available.]

 

D4. - Telephone Stamp Card issued by Post Office Telecommunications in 1979, before British Telecom - and I thought Busby was a BT mascot.  Inside there's room for up to 20 Telephone stamps and this too could be used as a gift card to a friend or relative. Telephone Stamps could only be used to pay for telephone charges which, at the time, you could pay in cash at the PO counter.  [only 1 now available]

D5. Lastly a proper postal item - a parcel tag for the Royal Mail Parcels Direct Bag Service for mailings to Charities.  When this was used mailbags would be delivered to the charity intact, which made handling easier for Royal Mail and for the charity.  This may have been for the children's TV programme Blue Peter in 1994.  Just one of these available.

 

Pick and Choose: if you are interested in any or all of these, leave a comment which I shall publish as soon as I can, and say which ones you would like.  Then send me an email with your name and address and blog follower ID.

I'll mark the blog as soon as I can as individual items cease to be available.  

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E. It's what's inside that counts - Kent Air display 1935 - £10 including postage

When you buy mixed lots of covers you get some good, some ordinary, and some in quite poor condition.  Certainly this isn't a cover that would make it into a collection or display.

1935 cover posted locally at Margate with 1½d Jubilee stamp.

There isn't even anything on the even grubbier reverse to indicate where it cam from: without the contents it is nothing.  The letter, however, reveals that the addressee is a lucky prize-winner in the Isle of Thanet Gazette contest to win a free flight in an air display by Sir Alan Cobham.  

After service in WWI in the Royal Flying Corps and then the RAF he joined De Haviland as a test pilot. He flew around Europe, to Cape Town, and then to Australia leaving from the River Medway in Kent.

In 1932 he started the National Aviation Day displays – a combination of barnstorming and joyriding. This consisted of a team of up to fourteen aircraft, ranging from single-seaters to modern airliners, and many skilled pilots. It toured the country, calling at hundreds of sites, some of them regular airfields and some just fields cleared for the occasion. Generally known as "Cobham's Flying Circus", it was hugely popular, giving thousands of people their first experience of flying, and bringing "air-mindedness" to the population.  From 1933-35 there were two simultaneous tours throughout the season but these stopped after a fatal mid-air collision over Blackpool.

Letter from Gazette to lucky winner (divided scan - letter complete)

National Aviation Displays Ltd Display Flight Ticket.

Just one available, so if you would like this leave a comment which I shall publish as soon as I can.  Then send me an email with your name and address and blog follower ID.  I'll provide payment details as soon as I can.

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F. Welsh local? No, Argentine Cinderella!   -  Reserved for Jan.

This might appeal to collectors in Wales, or of Welsh material - especially if they live in Argentina - buenas tardes!

In 1865, a group of Welsh people grew tired of the English domination of their land and peoples. Led by the Reverend Michael Jones, this group took their ship, the Mimosa, and sailed to what became Port Madryn in Argentina. The group of about 150 people wished to find vacant land to occupy where they could preserve their culture and avoid the economic oppression they felt in Wales. 

In September 1965 the Argentine Government issued an 8 pesos stamp to commemorate the centenary of the Welsh colonisation of Patagonia. The stamp design shows the tea clipper Mimosa, which was specially converted into a passenger vessel for this voyage, against a map of the Province of Chubut, where the Welshmen made their settlement. They landed at Puerto Madryn, Patagonia on July 28, 1865, sailing from Liverpool on May 25. [Ships Stamps website]  

8 pesos Argentina stamp marking the centenary of the Welsh colonisation of Patagonia, depicting the Mimosa.

The early settlers livied in caves or pits dug into the ground, but they persevered until the building of the Patagonian Railway in 1886, which precipitated the expansion of the settlement. In 1965, their descendants issued a commemorative label to honor the centennial of the colony's founding.

Since the inscription "Post Cymru" (Welsh Post) occurs at both the right and left sides of the stamp, it is easily mistaken for a regional postal issue. Done in green with black, the stamps were issued in rouletted sheets of 50.

"Cwladfa Patagonia" (Colony of Patagonia) appears at the top right above a vignette of a black sailing ship approaching green cliffs. At the bottom, in black, is the inscription "Mimosa, Porth Madryn, 28 VII '65", indicating the date in July, 1865, that the colonists arrived. [Cinderellas Riga Stamps website]

"Cwladfa Patagonia" (Colony of Patagonia) commemorative label to honor the centennial of the colony's founding.

Again just one available - free of charge - so if you would like this leave a comment which I shall publish as soon as I can.  Then send me an email with your name and address and blog follower ID. 

Reserved for Jan 

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 The PUC £1 and Olympics packs from Week 46 are still available.

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More to follow as I delve deeper into the boxes.  If you are looking for something unusual, drop me an email about it and if I have any, I'll let you know.

All offers are now in a separate page - see link on right under 'LINKS'   ➡︎➡︎➡︎➡︎➡︎➤

This will be expanded with more offers, and a brief post will be added in the blog for each week. 

Thanks for looking!

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