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New Zealand Postcard Society (Inc) Directory Patron Chas Lilley: P O Box 372 New Plymouth chas@stampshop.co.nzPresident Jeff Long: 160 Soleares Ave, Mt.Pleasant, Christchurch 8081 jefflong@xtra.co.nz (03) 3848463Vice-President Laurence Eagle: 55 Ravensdale Rise, Westmorland, Christchurch (03)332 4238Editors Jeff Long &Laurence Eagle (details above)Secretary Jenny Long: 160 Soleares Ave, Mt.Pleasant, Christchurch 8081 jenny.long@paradise.net.nz (03) 3848463Treasurer Ross Alexander: 110 Aikmans Road, Merivale, Christchurch 8001 rossalexander@xtra.co.nz 03 355 5357Sales Mgr/Auctioneer Chris Rabey 55 Apuka Street, Brooklyn, Wellington ships.pubs@paradise.net.nz (04)384 9293‘Annual’ Editor Bill Main: 93 Burma Road, Wellington 6035 wmain@paradise.net.nz (04)971 3535Committee Geoff Potts: 102 Fox Road, Wanganui pottsfamily00@hotmail.com Ray Staal: Villa 73 Summerset Village, 40 Burton Avenue, Wanganui John Eccles: PO Box 1174, Wellington. john.eccles@xtra.co.nz Donal Duthie: 5 Ellerslea Lane, Feilding 4702 donalduthie@paradise.net.nz Chas Lilley: P O Box 372 New Plymouth chas@stampshop.co.nz The Postcard Pillar News & Views is produced three times a year under the editorship of Jeff Long and Laurence Eagle. Contributions are very welcome at any time; please email or post to Jeff Long (details above) Membership of the Society can be obtained by sending a cheque payable to N.Z. Postcard Society Inc for $30 (families $35, overseas $NZ40) to the Secretary, with your name, address, telephone number, email address and collecting interests
Editorial: This is the sixth edition of the Postcard Pillar News & Views. Remember we need your contributions, preferably in electronic format, but it is perfectly fine if this is not possible. The main aim is to get your words and pictures and ideas out to our membership. This issue we have interesting and significant articles by Laurence Eagle, Brian Vincent, Chas Lilley, Alan Jackson, Bill Main, Laurie Dale, and ‘Safari.’
News: A postcard ‘special interest’ group has been formed in Christchurch, under the auspices of the Christchurch Philatelic Society. Meetings will be held on the third Tuesdays of alternate months from August. Come along !
Cover illustration
This edition’s cover picture is related to an article inside the magazine from Brian Vincent.
The Postcard Society Convention 2010
Palmerston North. September 18/19
Be there !
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The Postcard Society Annual Convention will be held in Palmerston North this year, on the weekend on September 18/19.
All the details are included with this issue of News & Views, so please respond ASAP so arrangements can be finalized. Looking forward to seeing you there !
W T Wilson by Jeff Long
Our own Wish You Were Here has just a brief note on this photographer, as follows:
Wilson operated a photographic studio in Remuera in Auckland. He began producing real photo postcards of the Auckland area around 1910, mostly view cards of the Auckland area. Some of his views were issued under the imprint of other publishers, such as Fergusson Ltd. He produced on his own account an extensive series of cards for the 1913-14 Auckland International Exhibition.
I am told by Alan Jackson that this is all he and Bill Main managed to find out about this photographer, and that this came mainly from an extensive page-by-page search through the Wises Street/Business Directories of NZ.
Looking further, I have found this his full name was William Thompson Wilson. The Wises Directories show he worked in Clonbern Road, Remuera from 1910 to 1916, and was listed as a photographer until 1916 when he was listed as a postcard manufacturer. Probate documents are kept in Auckland; he died in 1917.
The Alexander Turnbull Library and Auckland Museum have some of the Wilson photos on their website, but no general information about the man or his work. So far, I have not found any reference to Wilson in Papers Past, but perhaps I have not searched diligently enough.
I have recently acquired a collection of about 240 images, all from one correspondence to his girlfriend. There are some fascinating little messages, which I will write up for a future News & Views, but in the meantime I need your help to find out more about Wilson and his work. Can our Auckland members help ??
The Ian Conrich Collection of Maori-themed Postcards
Members will have received the listing with the last News & Views, and another is enclosed with this edition. There was much interest in the cards, especially the real photo cards, and most of these sold. The haka cards, generally regarded as very scarce, didn’t sell as well as might have been expected, but on the other hand, comic and greeting cards did sell well. Several members were concerned that institutional buyers might buy all the good cards, but actually this wasn’t the case. Because the auctions are similar in nature, no prices-realised list will be produced for each auction, but there will be an overall report when the series of auctions is completed.
The Society is running these auctions as a service to Ian and to our members; because the card details are so extensive, the printing cost is substantial, so bid up !.
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Nihotupu
Laurie Dale
I like postcards that are associated with my postal history interests and noticed that all three of these cards are inscribed ‘Nihotapu’ for Nihotupu.
The Nihotupu Stream in the Waitakere catchment was one of the early streams dammed for Auckland water supply and the Upper Nihotupu Dam is shown, (the second, Lower Nihotupu Dam, is not shown). The upper dam is not far from the lip of the waterfall. Great Nihotupu Falls were a popular tourist attraction until the area became part of the water catchment. Nihotupu was the name of a Turehu living in a cave near the area. The spelling of Nihotupu on the cards as ‘Nihotapu’ is obviously wrong.
To add to the confusion, the Nihotupu Stream flows into Manakau Harbour at what was once called Muddy Creek, then Brooklyn, then Nihotupu, then finally Parau in 1914. But the Post Office there 1913-1914 was spelt Nihotapu. The telephone office 1914-67 in the Waitakeres was always spelt correctly as Nihotupu, always associated with the scenic reserve and thus associated with the three cards.
It is unusual that three cards from different sources should have the same spelling error. (Acknowledgements to West Auckland Historical Society, especiallyVivien Burgess and Ben Copedo)
FT Glossine Great Nihotapu Falls Nihotapu Falls, near Waitarua (no name)
Tanner Bros Nihotapu Dam, Auckland NZ
Smith’s Bookshop moves to new premises
Society member Barry Hancox moves his Smith’s Bookshop stock to a new site further down Manchester St. to make way for earthquake strengthening. Smith’s Bookshop, started in 1894, had been fifty years in the same building.
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Bulk Purchasing of Postcards
By Chas Lilley
This would have been way back in the 50s. I had been a very strong collector of Postal History for some time and frequently bid in British auctions, and even belonged to the British postal history society. There was an auction in East Anglia I seemed to have some success with, and one of the lots was described as a large collection of postcards with some interesting London postmarks. As the estimate seemed reasonable, I thought I would have a go. I won the lot and it duly arrived, and the postmarks were as described, so everything was OK. Then one night soon after, I gave the picture side a second glance. A bit like having a first cigarette, I was hooked. Rarely looked at postmarks again!
I picked up a few here in NZ, but couldn't find anyone else with a similar interest so carried on, thinking I was a bit odd. My Dad died in 1972 so I promised my sister I would be over in 1973. She lived in Berkshire, not too far from Reading, where a Saturday market was held. Imagine my surprise when on a stall there were 2 boxes of old postcards marked as halfpenny for black and white (real photos etc) and penny for the coloureds. I asked him how much for the lot, and he replied half price. That was a farthing for the black and whites. Wow! He asked if I wanted any more at that price. Did I? Yes! I was going to be a postcard addict again, so with another 10 boxes (12 in all) and at about 600 to a box, I had about 7000 cards to look at that night. I think my sister thought me a bit crazy.
The Bloomsbury monthly fair had just got going, and there were not many dealers there, but they did have huge stocks! I mentioned London cards to one guy, and he asked whereabouts. I was blown away with his stock. About 20 feet of London cards, three or four boxes deep - in fact several hundred boxes of London. When I got back to NZ I gave it all a lot of thought, so when I bought the shop in 1977, I rounded up as many GB cards I could lay my hands on, and went back to Bloomsbury in 1978 and set up a stand This worked out very well and started me doing a trip virtually every year.
On one such trip I went up to Sheffield to see my old friend Mr Semetby, a Hungarian, who ran a very good postal history auction. I bought many unsold lots from him, and used to spend up to £12,000 every time. I think he always had a target with me. This particular trip he was really struggling to get to that magic figure, when he casually mentioned “postcards”. He wheeled in a trolley with a really heavy box on it, full of postcards. He wanted 4d each. Half an hour later I said OK. Then he asked if I wanted any more. Of course I did! Twenty-eight cartons later, or about 250,000 cards (yes - that’s right - a quarter million of them), l was wondering how much it was to hire a plane to New Zealand, when he volunteered to repack the lot to Royal mail regulations.
Some time later they arrived in a truck from the Post Office. There was no room in the shop for customers for a little while, my good wife thought I had gone raving mad, and it got me worried for a while. Who was I going to sell them to? There was no Post Card club in those days, but there was a good keen group in Auckland, so that was my answer. I went through them and graded them into, those that would sell at 20 cents each (the average cost of each card), and those better cards worth more (my profit). I think I got about 15,000 to 20,000 better ones averaging about a dollar each, plus many for my own collection. I used to post about a thousand at a time up to Auckland.
The funny thing was that I heard these cards were from Stanley Gibbons who were having a clear out. Not long after this Stanley Gibbons took a stand at Bipex for 2 years and the elderly gentleman who used to look after their cards in the Strand, who I got to know very well, and used to give me 15 % discount on NZ and Aussie cards but wouldn’t give a penny off on British topographical cards. Such a nice guy!
This wasn’t the end of bulk buying. I now had got the hang of it, and was looking for more adventures from this hobby of ours.
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Too Risque?
These two Raphael Tuck & Sons Real Photograph postcards were offered on Trade Me by one of our members, but apparently found unsuitable and removed from the site. Tuck’s were “art publishers” to Their Majesties the King and Queen!
Woodland Sprites The Order of the Bath
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- W. Wilson Scenic Series
Alan Jackson
Narena Oliver, a new member of our Society has sent me a query about an early postcard reproducing a painting entitled “Wanganui River, New Zealand” by L. W. Wilson. She asks when it was published and by whom.
This series was not mentioned in Wish You Were Here (2005) but it is not too difficult to find, although cards in fine condition without extensive foxing are not plentiful. As far as is known there were six different cards in the set, all depicting scenic paintings by Wilson. The titles are:
- HINEMOA’S BATH, ROTORUA, NEW ZEALAND
- LAKE MANAPOURI, NEW ZEALAND
- MANAWATU GORGE, NEW ZEALAND
- MITRE PEAK, MILFORD SOUND, NEW ZEALAND
- OTIRA GORGE, WEST COAST ROAD, NEW ZEALAND
- WANGANUI RIVER, NEW ZEALAND
Printed captions (as above) appear under each view, but hand-written captions and the artist’s signature appear within each painting as well.
Unfortunately, the cards bear no publisher’s imprint, but they may have been published in Dunedin around 1904-5. These cards were often put straight into albums unused, but I have seven used examples, of which, five were posted in Dunedin, one in Timaru, and one in Opunake. Dates of use range from December 1905 to March 1908. The cards have divided backs so could not have been published before October 1903.
Two of these cards bear overprinted advertisements for Brown Ewing & Co., a Dunedin drapery store. These publicise fashion shows in their premises in February 1906 and March 1908 and were mailed to established customers. Two possible scenarios spring to mind; (a) that Brown Ewing & Co. themselves may have been the publishers, or (b) that the store may have bought a large quantity of remainders cheaply in order to overprint them and use for publicity purposes.
There appears to have been only one printing of the set, as the backs of all cards we have seen are identical in basic design. These cards were probably printed in New Zealand. In their colouring, they are reminiscent of the early undivided multi-coloured cards printed and published in 1902 by H. J. Weeks Ltd. of Christchurch.
I know nothing of the artist L. W. Wilson. Perhaps some could provide further information.
Interestingly the roads through the Manawatu and Otira Gorges depicted in these paintings appear to be little more than dirt tracks a few feet wide. Any tourist who wished to visit all these places would probably have had to spend several weeks in the exercise, as transport was so slow, and in some cases, infrequent.
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Kiwiana Town – Otorohanga
Brian G Vincent.
As I read the article on the modern art cards produced by Contour Creative Studio (inscribed “By Air Classique”) in the May 2008 Postcard Pillar I was reminded of two postcards that I purchased during a recent visit to Otorohanga. During a stopover in this town my wife and I had walked down the main street to view all the displays in shop windows which feature our Nation’s Kiwiana. Later, at the Information Centre, I purchased two postcards showing “Kiwiana advertising” (OTO519) and “A taste of Kiwiana” (OTO503) – these being produced for Otorohanga by gbdesignz, with copyright dated 2006. These cards are further examples of the collectability of modern postcards and they are shown below alongside an Otorohanga Kiwiana Town brochure.
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Location Postcards - Cynicus
by Safari
Cynicus was the pen name of Martin Anderson 1854-1932. A Scot by birth and upbringing he moved to London to establish himself as an artist. After producing postcard designs for Blum & Degen in London, he created his own company in Tayport, Fife, Scotland (Cynicus Publishing Co., 1902-1916). Later he opened a subsidiary company in Leeds.
During his career, Martin Anderson produced and published a large number of cards under the pseudonym ‘Cynicus’. There were hundreds of designs, some hand tinted, with a variety of topics including comic. Designs and copies were licensed out and captions adapted to fit in with the humour of the day, even to the point of duplication and fiction. Many were adapted to promote locations in the United Kingdom, and New Zealand and possibly other countries as well.
I tend to collect only cards referring to the Hawkes Bay area (as illustrated) Neither Napier or Gisborne existed in 1850, although strangely by 1860 there was a 'Golden Fleece' Hotel in Napier.
The purpose of this article is to suggest that readers who have Cynicus cards from other locations in New Zealand contact the News and Views with details, especially with dates, if these are known. One thing that has always puzzled me is how the system operated to secure approval to promote the particular area. On looking at the two cards for Napier and Gisborne, the added printed appears identical. Perhaps they were imported in bulk by a central group and then used to feature central locations, all for a fee presumably. Can anyone throw some light on this? (There were several other publishers in the UK and NZ with similar types of procedures)
Used in Napier 24 January 1910
Used in Gisborne 23 March 1909
Same view used for Dannevirke & Wanganui
Used in Hastings 5 January 1909, received at Featherston 6 January 1909
Posted 1909
Posted Waipukerau 17 Jan 1909 Posted Waipukerau 27 July 1909
Addressed to Auckland, asking to
be excused from a game of Euchre
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Follow-ups from members
The Slovakian Postcard Tax
Further to the queries raised in News & Views for March 2009, Jenny Banfield has answered her questions herself.
In 1940 Slovakia introduced a tax on postcards. The money raised was to be used to promote and improve tourist accommodation at resorts in the famous Tatra Mountains, where German tourists could prepay for their holiday.
Three values were issued on very small stamps, which were printed in sheets of 100 by a private printer in Bratislava.
- 10h for internal tourists
- 15h for tourists from Bohemia & Moravia
- 20h for tourists from other countries.
Shops were required to affix the labels before selling the postcards. As you can imagine, this led to many cards having the incorrect label attached, perhaps explaining why the tax was dropped after two years !
Would you use some of this information in a postcard exhibit? The Editor would, especially if the card depicted the Tatra Mountains.
Rev Harry Voyce
The inaugural issue of our Postcard Pillar Annual was dedicated to Harry, a dedicated collector and significant author. Flemming Jensen from Invercargill, a keen collector on anything to do with sailing ships, sent us this list of publications from Ponwinkle, a Coromandel firm in the late 1900’s, which includes some of Harry’s contributions.
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Snippets !!
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Answers needed please !!
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Whitebait fritters anyone??
Brian G Vincent.
Whitebait is a native fish of New Zealand and there are five species – the most common being the inanga.
I have to confess – I am a “whitebaiter”, and I disappear from home most days (weather and tides permitting) for three months every year to try and catch some “bait” during the whitebait season. Family members await my return each day hoping to hear some good news and perhaps, if it has been a good day, to stay for an evening meal of the delicacy.
As Keri Hulme wrote (in the book “Whitebaiters Never Lie, Exploring an Iconic Kiwi Culture” by Anita Peters and Murray Hedwig) “Whitebaiters don’t tell lies – they just don’t necessarily tell all the truth, or much of it at all”. When asked, most of those who fish near me usually have “just a handful” or “enough for a pattie.” (or “you should have been here last month, that’s when they ran!”) Whitebait nets come in various shapes and are either hand-held “scoop” nets or “set” nets (with or without screens assembled alongside depending on the location).
Figure .
For many years now, the West Coast of the South Island has been renowned for plentiful catches and this Muir and Moodie postcard (unused and not dated) from their Copyright Series of Views, shows “Whitebait fishing, Buller River, Westport, NZ” - Figure 1. It is numbered 6501, and the whitebaiter is using what is known as a “scoop” net.
Of the four postcards I have which feature whitebaiting, this is the only one from the golden age of postcard collecting. The other three are all modern cards. Of these, the postcard (Figure 2) which shows a close-up of a whitebait catch is from Charleston, a small town south of Westport, and alongside it is another postcard (Figure 3) showing the town as well as views of Constant and Joyce Bays. Both of these postcards were published by “the Charleston European Pub” (where my wife and I enjoyed a nice lunch of whitebait fritters during a visit to the West Coast last year).
Figure 2
Figure 3
Up north, in Northern Taranaki, is the Mokau river – named by the locals as the “Whitebait Capital of New Zealand”. The two postcards of the Mokau River show a whitebaiter with his catch (he is using a “set” net), Figure 4, and – on the other card – a whitebaiter’s stand (at far right), Figure 5. These two postcards are published by Jane Dove Juneau and they are numbered T-027 and T-033. They were purchased by me in early 2010.
Figures 4 and 5
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Closed Albums
Brian Potts
It is with regret that we record the passing of member Brian Potts of Wanganui on 20 May, 2010, aged 90. Brian was a member of the Society since the 1980’s, and was a regular buyer at dealer fairs looking for railway and Wanganui cards.
His railway interest came from a forty year career with New Zealand Railways, retiring in 1976. Brian also had a strong passion for Wanganui, having been born and bred in that city. Our condolences to Geoff and Judy Potts, who are also members of our Society.
Mark Febery
Mark was another long-time member of the Society. Starting as a stamp collector, Mark moved to collecting postcards in a big way. Mark organized his cards by theme, so it was always a thrill to look through his albums as you could never be sure what you might see next. The Society has helped family members to assess the collection. Mark was also an enthusiastic collector of books, and a keen amateur builder of brick garden and house structures. Our condolences to members of Mark’s family.
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Information Wanted
George Rose and the Postcard Era
This is the title of a forthcoming book by Ron Blum of Adelaide. As a part of this book on the Pacific Islands, Ron is seeking information about the titles of real postcards produced of this area by George Rose.
Specifically, Fiji (Gardiner, Muir, Mitchelmore cards), Nauru, New Caledonia, New Guinea and Ocean Island.
Ron is interested only in black and white real photo types of cards.
Any information would be appreciated. Contact Ron and ronkaren@chariot.net.au
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