Despatched by Tin Can Mail

Kym bought in the coolest bit of "show and tell" to work recently - her Grandfather's cover from 6th September 1937. It was thrown overboard in a sealed tin can from the Cruise Steamer "Maunganui"to be collected by canoe from the Tongan island of Niuafoou (or Niuafo'ou) before it found its way to the faraway Victorian country town of Kerang.

This is possibly the coolest item of post I have ever seen. And I don't think I am overstating it. I had heard this story of the Tin Can Island from Meredith, when she shared her son's stamp collection with us a few months ago. But to see an actual piece of Tin Can Mail... what a treat!!

How wonderful are all the stamps on the reverse? There is even a little bit of Cyrillic thrown in!

So I am very delighted to discover that Meredith's fantastical story of the Tin Can Island is in fact true - I have seen the post to prove it! Thanks so much Kym for sharing this wonderful little treasure (I do so love "show and tell")!

Postcards from Egypt on ANZAC day

I have mentioned Grandma Nellie on this blog quite a lot, because she recently gave me her stamp collection. However, she gave me another gift several years ago, before I travelled to Egypt, which I treasure perhaps even more than the stamps. She gave me two souvenir postcard books her father sent back to his sister from Egypt during World War I, while he was serving in the Australian Light Horse Brigade.

As today is ANZAC day, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to showcase these beautiful postcard books. These postcards have been passed down to me because 98 years ago, a young man from rural Victoria went all the way across the world to spend four years of his life apart from his family and friends and the security of his home to fight a distant war.

Grandma Nellie speaks often and warmly of her kind father, 'Pa-sie' (as in Pa, but with an affectionate flourish of an added "sie/sey": I have no idea how to spell that) and so I cherish these little tokens I have from him.

I love that the Port Said book has a thumbnail image and a place to record to whom you sent the corresponding card!

I find the postcard books absolutely the most stunning items of ephemera, and I love the exotic images within the covers, and the texture of the pages, and the fact that there are sheets of fine tissue paper between each card.

These postcards conjure for me a romanticised past: I can't help it, but I see them and imagine men with bushy moustaches in nice white linen suits (and oh golly - I bet one or two wore a pith helmet and a safari suit!) exploring amazing places on the edges of the 'civilised world' -or beyond the British Empire. I love the fictional world I see in these postcard images, and wish that I could travel there.

The stark reality is, of course, that these postcards have come to me after being sent home from a war, and there is nothing romantic, exotic or beautiful about that. But I still love these postcard books, and have had them tucked away for several years, so it is really nice to get them out and truly appreciate them today. Thank you Pasie.

Lest we forget. 

I heart Australian Antarctic Territory stamps

Within my stamp collection my stamps from the Australian Antarctic Territory are particularly treasured. This is why I have used some of the AAT stamps for the background image of this blog (notice what I did there.. AAT: that is the stamp-nerd acronym for Australian Antarctic Territory) . This week I thought I would properly share with you the stamps that so tantalisingly peek out around the edges of my blog.

$1 - Parahelion "Mock Sun".
(I have never heard the word Parahelion before, but I like it. I will try to drop it into everyday conversation soon.)

I generally love AAT stamps because they feature beautiful icy landscapes and cute penguins. But this particular set is about my favourite set of stamps EVER. I just love the fluoro orange that features on them.

Doesn't this helicopter look like it has come straight off a James Bond set?

I love the romanticism of Antarctica - the deserts of ice rather than sand that are so inhibiting yet exhilarating. A frontier if ever there was one. I have always wanted to travel there. And this set of 1966 stamps makes me want to go there even more.

I bought an incomplete set at the end of last year from "Rusty's" in Rosedale while there on a fieldtrip for work. Rusty told me that the higher value stamps were harder to come by. I loved them immediately so I bought the incomplete set. But thanks once again to Grandma Nellie's collection, I now have the full set. Not only that, but Grandma had kept the original packaging.

The series of stamps is highlighting Australian scientific research in Antarctica and the brochure that goes with the stamps tells me that:

• Antarctica was first circumnavigated by James Cook in 1772-5
• The first Australian Expedition was that of Mawson in 1911-14
• Australian scientists on Antarctica are involved in meteorology, cosmic rays (! More James Bond?), auroral displays, seismology, biology and geomagnetism. I don't know what geomagnetism is, but it sounds sexy.

Not only that, but the brochure gives a proper definition of what  a parahelion is:

"an antarctic mirage seen when microscopic ice crystals in the air reflect back the real sun and ghostly counterparts of it, ranged round the horizon and connected by bands of light."

I think I just found another reason to want to go to Antarctica.

As it turns out, when you used to buy philatelic material from the Australian Post Office in the 60s, not only did you get a brochure telling you all these cool facts - you also received a gorgeous little greeting card to match the stamp issue. And, oh how I am loving the ephemera! And on that note, just to prove once and for all that my collection is getting a little out of hand, last week I bought the following book - just because the illustrations were cool and it kind of matched my stamp collection:

1960 edition. This is the back cover - but I just love the orange snow-vehicle.

So. AAT stamps. Absolutely my favourite. Thanks for letting me show them off.

1c - Aurora and Camera Dome; 2c Banding Penguins.

Souvenirs from Mongolia

It was while standing in front of a billboard, in downtown Ulaan Bataar that I had a revelation: Princess Amidala's costumes in Star Wars Episode I were based on Mongolian traditional dress. I had not been in Mongolia long, when I saw this faded poster of a girl with the distinctive hairstyle, and it shocked me because it revealed that my favourite part of the Star Wars prequels - Natalie Portman's costumes - were not as creative or other-worldly as I had thought. They were very much of this world, and in fact harked directly from Mongolia.

Padmé Amidala

I loved Mongolia for many reasons. I loved the old Soviet-styled buildings; I loved the romance of the steppes; I loved the Cyrillic alphabet. I didn't know anything much of Mongolia before I arrived there. I had heard of Genghis Khan and the Gobi Desert, and that was about the sum of my knowledge. I also knew that it was a former communist country, and that intrigued me.

1993 Mongolian calendar. Not 'post', but surely one of my favourite pieces of ephemera.

I visited in Mongolia in 2004 - barely a decade on from the fall of communism in the country. The communist legacy so evident in the fabric of the city (the buildings, the city square, the monuments) was very foreign to me- and therefore very exciting; but it was the more distant past that truly captured my imagination.

Looking at images of traditional Mongolian dress evokes for me the era of Mongolian dominion over China and Russia. Today poor little Mongolia is geographically (and politically) squished between its two neighbouring super-powers. But once-upon-a-time Genghis Khan led the Mongols to conquer and unify a vast empire. For that he is celebrated and revered in Mongolia (although in most other places he is remembered as a merciless brute). And then the Chinese came in and took over the whole shebang...

So for my first item of show-and-tell on this blog, I want to share my Mongolian stamps featuring traditional costumes. Different ethnic groups across Mongolia have different attire, and they are represented on the below set of stamps. But when I look at these stamps, I not only see a once powerful empire, I also see Princess Amidala. And then I realise you don't have to go to another galaxy far far away to find glorious costumes to amaze and inspire: you just have to go to Mongolia.