“TIN CAN” MAIL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 May 1938, Page 9

“TIN CAN” MAIL

COVERS FOR PHILATELISTS. Philatelists will be interested to learn that an opportunity of obtaining the interesting “Tin-Can” Mail covers will be afforded when the steamer Maunganui calls off Niuafoou Island during the course of her cruise to Tonga, Samoa and Fiji in August. Niuafoou or “Tin-Can” Island, an outlier of the Tongan Group, is a small volcanic island about 5 miles in diameter, its whole centre being a crater lake surrounded by a ring of cliffs. It has no harbour, and the natives come out in canoes to pick up the mail which is put overboard in sealed tins. To obtain the “Tin-Can” Mail postmarks on envelopes, they should be addressed to the intended recipient, and sent under cover of another envelope addressed to the Union Steam Ship Co., Wellington, and marked on the outside, “Tin-Can Mail.” Sixpence in loose New Zealand stamps for each cover to be postmarked (2Jd for the necessary Tongan stamps and the balance for the Islanders’ services in handling the mail) -should be enclosed, and the packet must reach the Union Steamship Company, Wellington, before Friday, July 27. The envelope should be of a size to show off the postmarks satisfactorily, about 6ins. wide by sins. deep. The letters will be taken to Niuafoou by the Maunganui and after being dealt with there they will be returned by a later opportunity. It may perhaps be two or three months before the letters are received by the addressees, as apart from the infrequency of calls at the Island, occasionally there is delay through the Island’s supply of Tongan stamps running out.