VALUABLE STAMPS DESTROYED

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 124, 11 June 1937, Page 4

VALUABLE STAMPS DESTROYED

-Presa Assbeiation.)

.... .a ...n Sent on Air Mai! Covers From London 10SS TO 0WNER

(Bf T/slegraph-

DUNEDIN, Last Night. While there can be no doubt as to the value of air maal fpr thp purposes .of speedy transport for lettejs, few people could aftord to post magazines or literature that weigh more than oue or two ounces because the pri,ce i!s praetically prohibitiwe. To-day, Mr. Jeffrey Barnett received from his father, Mr. Arthur Barnett, who is at present' in Erigland, Coronation issues of three London allnstrated weeklies. These were sent out t.o Australia by air mail and the cost of postage reached the startling total of £7 17/6, There were eight .stamps on the package, two pf £2" denoniination, three of £1 stamps, one 10/-, one 5/ and one 2/6. The £1 English stamps are rare enough in New Zealand and the £2 denominations are even more rara. The value of these stamps to collectors would be such that their sale would more than defray the cost of postage, but this has been made impossible because . of the theft of both the £2 stamps and the defacement of the other three. " While faulty wrapping of the periodicals has resulted in one £1 stamp being torn almost in half and otherwise mutilated, the greater part of another of .the same denomination is missing, and the third has two pieces torn from it, all of them being usejess for philatelic purposes. The twe £2 stamps are missing, and a memorandum on the corner of the package states that the parcel wa.s received in New Zealand with the stamps damaged. As the package came out to Australia in a sealed bag, it may be supposed that the mutilation and theft occurred in that country. Apart from the faet that the magazines in themselves are novelties, having reached the Dominion less than a month after the Coronation, the amount of the postage and the denomination of the stamps made the wrapper distinctly valuable, but the wilful destruction of the stamps has now rendered them valueless, both sentimentally and intrinsically.