Solar Eclipse

Island Goes Into

The Stamp Game

Stamp collectors who like to get first day covers from the

really out-of-the-way places of

the world will be interested in the Cook Islands Administration's plan to send first day covers from a special post office on Manuae on May 30. j|/fANUAE is 124 miles north-east of Rarotonga. It is an atoll about a mile long by 600 yards wide, which, with another atoll, Te-Ao-o-Tu, encloses a lagoon and makes up the Hervey Islands.

On May 30, between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m., it will be the scene of intense scientific interest because of a total solar eclipse which will be better seen from there than from anywhere else in the world.

Scientists from New Zealand, Great Britain. Australia, Germany, Russia, Japan, the United States and Canada will be based on the island to observe the eclipse; and with this unprecedented influx of people, a post office will be opened for the first time.

Two Stamps

Its main business will be to sell a 6d. stamp depicting a green coconut tree in the foreground, the moon passing in front of the sun, a map of the two islands, and the inscription: “Manuae, 1965”. The background— the sky—will be blue. A 1/9 stamp, similar in design, may also be issued.

The Manuae Development Co operative Society Ltd., which leases Manuae on a 99-year lease from the Crown to produce copra, is the sole agent for the proposed special post office.

This co-operative is now receiving applications for first day covers con taining the stamps in question. Those interested should send the equivalent in New Zealand currency of the value of the stamps (sixpence or 1/9) plus threepence for the cover to: S. D. Heather, Secretary, Manuae Development Co-operative Society Ltd., P.O. Box 100, Rarotonga, Cook Islands.

Meanwhile, on March 18, the remainder of Tonga’s gold coin stamps, which were withdrawn from circulation on August 31, 1963, went on sale again. The stamps are countermarked to give them new denominations.

Australia, P-Ng Tour. Mr. R. G.

Gerard, NZ Minister of Lands, who in March-Aprit was heading a party of NZ parliamentarians on a goodwill tour of Australia and Papua-New Guinea. The party includes Mr. P. A. Amos, who de feated the former Minister for Island Territories, Sir Leon Gotz, at the last elections.