AERIAL POSTAGE STAMPS

Hokitika Guardian, 17 August 1931, Page 5

AERIAL POSTAGE STAMPS

A NEW ISSUE. PICTORIAL SETS FOR THE ISLANDS. WELLINGTON, August 11. New aerial post stamps for New Zealand and a complete change of the maos now being used in the Island dependencies are being prepared. There is also a possibility that the Is 3d stamps recently issued may. he with drawn. it is proposed to issue a set of three aerial post stamps, of the denomination of 3d, 4d and Vd, the fees charged for correspondence posted for carriage by the overseas air services. The proposed stamp will have an appropr ate design, the work of Mr 'Martin, a Wellington artist, but the plates will be made in England. A special stamp for the payment o! air mail fees in New Zealand was prepared previously, but has never been placed on issue, and will now be superseded by the set of three. It is also intended to withdraw the pictorial sets now being used in Ra otonga, Niue, Aitutaki and Penrhyu. and substitute one set comprising se\en values, for the Cook Islands, and an other similar series for Niue. The new stamps will be issued in £d Id, 2d, did, 4d, 6d and Is values the difference between the two sets being in the borders of the central design. For stamps of higher denomination tile present practice df -O.verrprinting the New Zealand stamps will continue. PICTORIAL DESIGNS. The designs which have been .chosen will be as follows: —$d, landing of Captain Cook, with his vessel in the back ground, , and a group of natives under coconut trees ashore; Id, Captain Cook in naval headdress; 2d, a double Maori canoe; 2-Jd, natives working cargo between the shore and a schooner at anchor, with a cargo shed and coconut plains in the foreground; 4d, the port of Avarua: 6d R.M.S. Monowai, which connects Rarotonga with the rest of the world, seen by moonlight; Is His Majesty in mufti. As with the air stamps, the plates will be manufactured in England and the stamps printed at the Government Printing Office. No announcement has yet been made as to whether it is intended that a new set of stamps should be issued for Samoa. All these changes are independent Of the competition for a new series of pictorial stamps for New Zealand which is at present- being conducted. The Is 3cl stamps which were p'aced on sale a few months ago have been roundly condemned by philatelists. Of an armorial design, which the “New Zealand Stamp Collector” alleges is inaccurate. the stamp is printed in a dull yellow, which the philatelic journal. having remarked upon the difficulty of adequately describing it, calls I “unripe lemon.”