Pacific Stamp Box

Edited by John Hunter

AS reported in Stamp News , the hot news from New Zealand is the case of New Zealand Post against a local community. The controversy began in 1987 when the Rural Delivery mail contracts were put out to tender. Perry’s Buses Ltd was one of those to lose its contract. The local community was not at all happy

because Perry not only provided a

mail service but delivered everything from groceries to passengers. The community formed the Coast Com munity Service in order to retain the former contractor. After examining

legal loopholes the community they

had found a way around NZ Post’s monopoly that documents could be transferred between Document ex

changes by private groups. The Coast

Community Service believed that if mail was deposited at a central point, it would come within the special ex ception. Stamps were issued and the document exchange service began in December 1987. It was so popular that most of the community abandoned the mail contractor and used the new ser vice. The first print of 30,000 stamps sold out within two days. Collectors in NZ and overseas have rushed further issues and the service continues. NZ Post’s attempts to stop the service are now in court after injunctions failed to halt the operation.

Australia Post will abolish the posi tions of State Historian of postal mate rial in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland as part of cost-cutting me asures.

TONGA: 1989 program: marine life, natural history, 200th anniversary of Bounty mutiny, World War I and II anniversaries, 50th anniversary of first

flight to Tonga, 125th anniversary of

UPU, Christmas issue.

NEW ZEALAND: January 20, wild flowers —40 c, 60c, /oc, 80c. March 1, writers.

AUSTRALIA: January 25, Australia Day, 39c. February 15, sports series, 39c, 40c, 55c, 60c, 63, 65c, 68c. Febru ary 27, sheep, 2 x 39c, 90c, $l.

Did you know 100 years ago cats were used to carry bundles of letters to villages in Belgium: the youngest person to design an Australian post age stamp was 5 years old. She de signed a Christmas stamp in 1983.

Stamp Appeal

CAN ANYONE oblige the boys

in the school stamp club by sending them if possible used postage stamps of your island or any other parts of the Pacific you may re ceive on your mail?

We now have 17 boys in the stamp club, thanks to people like you. We would especially like to hear from people in Tuvalu, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands.

You can write to us care of 29 Up pswater Road, Preston, Lancs, Eng land PR2 4AT. Thank you.

Robert Wareing

Preston, England

New Zealand Post’s popular native birds series released late in 1988.