New CI Stamps Issued

From Our Own Correspondent MANGAIA, Cook Is.

ON August 1, the new printing of Island stamps, showing views of the prin cipal isles of the Group and some of the northern atolls, was placed on sale in the Mangaia PO, which is also the office of the Resident Agent.

The new issue is printed upon paper a little thinner than previously used, and is backed with the same unreliable gum as of old. It has long been a tradition here that the NZ Government is very economical with the adhesive, when stamps for Cl are being processed. On the other hand, the new stamps are all of a very generous size, quite twice that of the older issue.

In view of Mangaia’s isolation, there is not the rush for first day covers that would be seen in a more accessible Pacific centre.

A new and admirable concomitant of the great occasion, was the issue to Mangaia Post Office of a cancelling stamp, marking envelopes “Mangaia, Cook Islands,” with, of course, the date. The old date stamp, a veteran of 30 years’ ser vice, had on it “Mangaia, NZ,” which at times caused some confusion between the island and a New Zealand town of the name of Manaia. The outmoded cancell ing-stamp will presumably be returned to GHQ in Rarotonga; though its right place, in view of its age, is the Cl Museum upon that island.

The old Captain Cook head Cl postage stamp is obsolete now, as are the over printed NZ “Royal Family” issue, the 2d. yellow with view of the discovery of an island by early Polynesian navigators; and all the rest of the sheets current up to 1948. From a collector’s point of view, the new stamps are not works of art, and their colour-scheme is a little crude. As a publicity stunt, however, the maps of

various Cl upon them are of value in defining for collectors (and the general public) the exact location of the archi pelago, often wrongly associated with Hawaii.