“TIN=CAN” MAIL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 June 1939, Page 6

“TIN=CAN” MAIL

An opportunity of obtaining the interesting “Tin-Can” mail covers will be afforded philatelists when the steamer Maunganui calls off Niuafoou Island during the course of her cruise to Tonga, Samoa and Fiji in August Last year jubilee stamps were issued by the Tongan Government to celebrate the 20th year of Queen Salotes reign, and these will be used for the “Tin-Can” mail, a special cover with a full set of the jubilee stamps being available. 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 go out in canoes to collect the mail, which is put overboard in sealed tins.

Io 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 Company, Wellington, and marked on the outside “Tin-Can mail.” Sixpence in loose New Zealand stamps for each cover to be postmarked (21d for the necessary Tongan stamp and the balance for the islanders’ services in handling the mail) should be enclosed, and the packet must reach the Union Steam Ship Company, Wellington, before Friday, July 28. One shilling in stamps should be enclosed for each cover on which a full set of Jubilee stamps is required. The envelope should be of a size to show off the postmarks satisfactorily, about 6 inches wide by 5 inches 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.