Pacific stamp box

Recent industrial strife in the mail sorting rooms of Sydney has hurt Australia Post - nearly 10 million items of mail stacked up in the city, impeding business, and generally annoying everyone, including your faithful scribe who, at time of writing, had received none of the recent new issues. The strikes hurt the mail sorters, too, for they did not receive any support for their wage demands from other work ers in the postal system.

The strike is now over, but the effects linger on to cast perhaps a little doubt on the ultimate future of the postal service in Australia. Even before the strikes occurred public dissatisfaction was widespread with mail deliveries and alternative services were springing up - special couriers, electronic mail, using either facsimile or computer printouts. Indeed, Australia Post itself has introduced an electronic mail service. These are speedy but are, of course, not confidential.

Even though the strikes now seem to be over, many of the private services have stayed in business, offering to businessmen delivery times quite noticeably faster than the mails. Their prices are, of course, higher, but in today’s world time is money and a document which might spend a week travelling just between Melbourne and Sydney can easily become valueless if it misses its deadline. Certainly, Australia Post has lost several million dollars worth of contract business from such as the Readers Digest, who operate the largest mailing list in Australia.

This news is, of course, most distres sing to stamp collectors for it threatens the very existence of their hobby.

Without a post office, how can one have stamps, and without stamps, how can one have philately? It hasn’t come to this yet, and probably will not. Yet many a hurricane starts with just a zephyr. *** Meantime, let us soldier on with what new issues we have managed to find.

First of these from the Pacific area is the two-stamp issue from Solomon Islands to mark the International Year of Youth. These feature the marathon run for charity which was organised by St Martins Rural Training Centre.The centre caters for high school “drop outs” and teaches youths contempor ary agriculture, adapted to traditional crops.

To raise money the school deve

loped a formidable long-distance run ning team which, over recent years, has notched up considerable athletic suc cess.

In 1985, the team ran an extraordin ary route, starting on October 14 from Brisbane and going through Sydney, Melbourne, and Geelong, to Canberra, then back to Sydney and on through Armidale and Toowoomba to the finishing line in Brisbane on December 23. The boys ran 100 to 120 km a day in relay fashion with each of the 20 boys running skm to 6km legs. Along the way they put on displays of traditional singing and dancing.

Souvenir sheets featuring the special stamps were sold on envelopes and cancelled in the towns and cities through which the marathon passed. ♦ * * * * * * The Papuan Philatelic Society, head quartered in London, has formed a new branch in Sydney. The group meets on the last Monday of February, May, August and November at 7.30 pm in Philas House, 17 Brisbane St., Sydney. Previously the only meeting of the society was held annually in Mel bourne. Further details from P.O. Box A 495, Sydney South, NSW 2000. *** The Federated States of Micronesia is a country which does not feature very much in the philatelic world but may be set to change that situation in the future. Their latest issue is a pretty set of four stamps featuring famous ships associated with the region.

These are the C.S.S. Shenandoah which was the last armed cruiser to carry the flag of the Confederate States of America and which had the distinc tion of being involved in the most distant action fought as part of the American civil war. What’s more, it was a successful action.

The Shenandoah fought the action in June, 1865, capturing four ships of a Yankee whaling fleet. But the war had been over for some months, a point of detail which the cruiser’s captain did not get until he met a British ship in August. The mistake was natural enough in those days of difficult com munications, and it earned the ship a place on Micronesia’s new 44 cent stamp.

The 22 cent stamp of the series shows the U.S.S. Jamestown a famous warship which was sent on a cruise of Micronesia in 1870 to investigate assorted complaints by Americans who

had settled there.

The 33 cent stamp shows L’Astro labe, a French ship which made an expedition to the Pacific out of which came the current classification of Pacific peoples into the three main anthro pological groups, Polynesian, Microne sian and Melanesian. It also searched, with limited success, for evidence of La Perouse’s ill-fated 1788 expedition.

The cruise of L’Astrolabe cost 29 lives and was heavily criticised for that, although history shows it to have made a very valuable contribution to Euro pean knowledge of the area. The fourth stamp of the series, of 39 cent de nomination, also shows a French ship, La Coquille. $ $ a|e $ $ jjc sjc Halley’s Comet is already within view of the earth on its once-in-76years appearance, and already some countries have announced stamp issues to commemorate the event. Norfolk Island will release a setenant pair with a value of $1 on March 11, 1986, and a number of other countries are also indicating they will also be on the astronomical bandwagon. The comet could make a nice thematic collection. *** For investors let me suggest obtain ing copies of the 1981 Charles Darwin set from Cocos Islands. This issue includes a standard set of stamps and a miniature sheet as well. The miniature sheet contained two 24 cent stamps with different designs for the single stamp. This is now becoming difficult to obtain, but is essential for a complete coverage of the issue. * * * * * * * Finally, a bit of philatelic esoterica.

The world’s stamp-licking record was broken at Sunpex 85 in Brisbane. In just four minutes Mr lan Thomas licked 204 stamps and stuck them on en velopes. His name is now enshrined in the Guinness Book of Records and, we are told, his tongue is recovering nicely.