VALUABLE STAMPS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 September 1943, Page 5

VALUABLE STAMPS

GIFT TO SOUTH AFRICA “South Africa has received a gift that will always be treasured by her people—a collection of Transvaal stamps, very old and rare issues, actually the most complete and valuable collection in the world. They used to belong to Mr J. H. Curie, the traveller and author, and are a bequest from him to our Africana Museum in Johannesburg. The ceremony of handing over the stamps took place at South Africa House, where Colonel Denys Reitz, the High Commissioner, accepted them from the late Mr Curie’s representatives. The collection is kept in a watertight tin, and once, during the blitz on London, it was found floating around in a strongroom, in danger of being damaged by flood water. But when the tin was broken open- in Colonel Reitz’s office last week, the stamps were in perfect condition, with nothing to show what a narrow escape they had had. The Curie collection is going to be kept in Britain till the war is over, and then it will go out to the Union and certainly be one of our best showpieces in the Africana Museum.”— Cyril Watling, in the 8.8. C. overseas service.