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Ed Wolf - Philatelic researcher, storyteller and aerophilatelist extraordinaire.

12/5/2022

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Read his very well reseached paper on the 1931 England - Australia Experimental flights.
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Mr. Ed Wolf receiving Australian Philatelic Research award in March 2021.
Ed Wolf has been interested in Aviation since childhood. At school he was a sergeant in the Air Training Corps and at University was a Pilot Officer in the Sydney University Squadron.

​His other interest, philately, initially consisted of a 10 volume collection of Airmail Stamps of the World but the emphasis moved to flight covers some 40 years ago. His current interests are the Internal and External Airmail routes of Australia, British Internal Airmails, the Royal Flying Doctor Service, the UIVER story, the Trans-Tasman, Pacific and the South Atlantic Ocean Airmails.
To better understand the historical aspects he has spent an extensive time researching his subject in the National Archives at Kew, The India Office's Oriental Room in the National Library at St. Pancras, and the British Postal Section at Mt Pleasant. Accuracy has been the aim.

An active member of the numerous Societies, he has held the posts of President, Secretary, Editor and Treasurer at the most of them from time to time. Currently he is the Chairman of the NSW Philatelic Deveopment Council and an accredited National Judge. His writings has been mostly in local philatelic Societies, this being the firsr major effort.

Ed has published a book, The Flight of the Old Carthusian in 2012. The book is part of an anticipated series to be known as "The Air Road to Australia" which will trace the development of the route from its inception using authentic documentation to tell the story.

Ed has also written a detailed account of the two Experimental Flights in 1931 between England and Australia. This account is in four parts, and these flights are of great significance to Aerophilatelists and Postal History collectors in India. He has graciously premitted us to post these stories on our website, which you can access by using the links below.
1931 First Experimental Flight
1. The 1931 First Experimental Flight
​from England to Australia
2. The 1931 First Experimental Flight
​​from Australia to England
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The backstamp of Victoria Point April 22, 1931, indicates that mail was offloaded at Rangoon
(on April 15) and continued south by steamer.
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On reverse additional 3 Anna external postage, Smith signature and backstamp Allahabad May 3. The purple cachet applied subsequently.

1931 Second Experimental Flight
3. The1931 Second Experimental Flight
​from ​England to Australia
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The 3-line cachet was applied unofficially by Stephen Smith subsequent to the flight. 
4. The1931 Second Experimental Flight ​
from ​Australia to England
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The green cachet was applied subsequently by Stephen Smith.

(Article Courtesy: Mr. Ed Wolf)
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1932 London Stephen Smith cover

10/8/2017

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​The First Flight from Karachi to Madras by Tata Sons Ltd., Aviation Department on 15 October 1932 was historic in many respects. In a sense it marked the birth of Indian Civil Aviation in the true sense. The schedule was arranged so that the mail arrived from Croydon on the incoming flight the previous evening at Karachi, and was picked up by the Tata service to depart early the next morning. After stops at Ahmedabad and Bombay, the flight halted overnight at Bellary, and continued the next morning on to Madras. J.R.D. Tata piloted the first flight from Karachi to Bombay, and Neville Vintcent onward to Madras.

This event is also very special to Airmails collectors, and there are many beautiful and exciting items to be collected here. I had prepared a 5 frame exhibit which I displayed in Melbourne 2017 and you can see it by clicking the link here.

This cover is perhaps unique, and I always use this expression with some amount of trepidation. It was handcrafted by Stephen Smith, and is a Type 1a and Type 2 combination cover. This is special for a variety of reasons; Handcrafted by Stephen H. Smith - only known example to me; Only example of mail from Britain to India using Tata souvenir covers; One of the very few examples of registered mail from Britain carried on this flight.

This Registered Mail cover was postmarked Notting Hill, London on 5 October 1932 and arrived in Karachi on 14 October by IE 185, and then flown from Karachi, where the boxed First Flight cachet was applied, to Bombay reaching the same day, and then onward by surface to Calcutta, where it was delivered on 17 October.
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Air-India 8 June 1948 stamp - Later usage and 'Taxed'

22/1/2017

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The 8 June 1948 stamp issued to commemorate the first Air-India International service to London was only to be used for mail carried on that flight. Here are two interesting examples of covers used later, and how the postal authorities (correctly) treated the mail.
Picture
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This Air-India International souvenir cover with the 12 as. stamp is cancelled CALCUTTA 9 JUN, and also has a LONDON 9 JY 48 arrival postmark. The cover is from the Murli Nair collection. Since the letter was posted in Calcutta after the 5 June deadline, it was too late to be sent to Bombay and be carried on the 8 June inaugural service, and also have the first flight cachet applied there. The Calcutta postal authorities did the right thing in treating the cover as unstamped, and still sending it to London with a Postage Due mark. There is a faint 7 visible under the mess of two round black obliterators beside the stamp. This is perhaps the postage due marking. They also cancelled the stamp, thereby rendering it unfit for further use.
Another unusual aspect is the application of the London arrival mark on the stamp itself, which is contrary to normal practice of applying it on the reverse of the cover. Interestingly, mail carried on the 8 June flight did not receive any arrival mark in London.

One more interesting cover is shown below:
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Here is a similar cover, with the 12 as. stamp, this one with a CALCUTTA, 9 JUN 48, cancellation clearly visible on the reverse. The stamp is cancelled with a LONDON 9 JY inverted arrival mark quite clearly, and there is a handwritten T 50/c postage due endorsement in red visible beside the stamp on the front. Both covers are very interesting, and add spice to any collection.

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Interesting find - Error stamps on Cover.

6/11/2016

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One of my professional philatelist friends sent me some rather interesting Air-India International June 1948 flight covers, which included examples of the two known varieties of Constant Errors, but this time on flown covers. I must add that I'm thrilled to have these, and this is the first time I've seen them on cover. Not sure how rare they are, since each sheet had 160 stamps (8x20), and one example of each of the two errors varieties on each sheet. My understanding is that about 3,500 sheets were printed (560,000 stamps). If this assumption is true, then there should be 3,500 of each error variety, and most of them on flown covers. I would love it if readers posted their comments on this hypothesis.

So, here is the first error, the 'Broken Tail' variety. You will notice that the center fin of the tailplane has a break in the leading edge. The Official Souvenir cover is correctly franked 14 as. which was the postal rate to Switzerland, and went on the first flight from Bombay to Geneva.
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Below is a cover with an example of the 'Extra Porthole' error. This is on a Registered Air-India International Souvenir cover flown on the first flight from Bombay to London, and then onward to New York. The cover is franked with a block of four 12 a. special postage stamps issued for use on that date. The correct rate would be 24 as., and it has been overstamped by another 24 as.

Now, focus on the stamp on the bottom row on the right hand side. There, quite clearly, you will find the 'Extra Porthole' error stamp.

I hope this provides some motivation to all readers to carefully scan through their collections and look for covers with such stamps.
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Jean Voruz from Lausanne is one more of our growing tribe of Air-India fans.

3/10/2016

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Picture
Voruz presenting to the India Chapter of the RPSL
in Mumbai on 24 September 2016


Jean Voruz has spent many years studying the crash of the Malabar Princess (VT-CQS). He is an amateur philatelist, and has put together many outstanding exhibits on the early postal history of Geneva, and other interesting subjects. His business card reads AEP, AP, AIJP, CCNY, CEPL, CMC, CPhH, GPC, RPSL. There is a very chilled beer waiting at home for any of you can decipher all these for me.
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The Royal Philatelic Society, London (RPSL) has an India chapter that meets regularly and brings philatelists together for very interesting get-togethers and discussions around the hobby.

Organised by the young and energetic Markand Dave, the Mumbai meeting on 24th September had a surprise visitor.
Jean Voruz, an amateur philatelist actually flew down all the way from Geneva for the weekend to speak with us about the crash of the Malabar Princess. This is the same aircraft that was used by the airline on the maiden voyage from Bombay to London, via Cairo and Geneva on 8 June 1948.

As a young man, he grew up near Chamonix and developed a passion for Alpine hiking. Here on the Bossons glacier, he first heard of the 1950 crash of the Air-India International flight from Bombay to London as it was descending to land at Geneva. Unfortunately, there were no survivors, but the cold weather, and gradual descent of the glacier ensured that the wreckage was remarkably well preserved, and new discoveries are made until this day, and new finds will continue to surface for many years.

Mail from the Malabar Princess wreckage, found in September 1951, and handed over to the Police at Chamonix with their violet octagonal cachet dated 12 Sept 1951 and additional blue postal cancellation at Geneva dated 17.IX.51 (image courtesy: Jean Voruz).
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He had our complete attention during his entire talk which included a power-point presentation, and was followed by a lively discussion. Voruz also spoke about the 1966 Kanchenjunga accident that occurred almost at the same spot, and about books and theories that continue to circulate about the incident. A very large quantity of mail was recovered salvaged from the Malabar Princess wreckage, and has been well documented in Nierinck. Recent finds include a large lot of about 75 letters by a young Scottish student in July 2010, and the trouble this young lady took in finding out the descendants of the various addressees and sending the mail to them.
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Left to Right: Abhishek Bhuwalka, Markand Dave and Jean Voruz in Mumbai.

Later that day, Voruz came across to my apartment and we exchanged some more notes on Air-India and I also showed him some salvaged mail and books on the topic from my collection. I have also been in correspondence with another collector who is currently in the U.S. and studies a very interesting aspect of salvaged mail from this same flight. I hope to post on my blog about him as well soon.
Voruz has been kind enough to permit me to share a copy of the presentation he used that day, and also a well illustrated 4 page article he has written on the subject. Both can be downloaded by clicking on the respective links.
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Here are images of two books in French written by Francoise Rey on the subject as well. She also summarized information from some important chapters of the book in English which can be read by clicking on this link.

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Award winning Air-India First Flight Philatelic Exhibit added

23/7/2016

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This week I have added the singe frame exhibit by Ashish Talwar. This exhibit is very informative, and has some superb rarities, many of which are shown on various other pages in my web-site. Here you can enjoy the exhibit page by page along with the write-up prepared by the exhibitor.

The Silver Medal winning exhibit is titled 'The First Flight of Air-India International', and was exhibited as frame number 12069 in Brasiliana 2013 World Stamp Exhibition held at Rio De Janeiro between November 19 - 25, 2013.


I've also added:

  • Two private covers, unlisted in PT from private collections.
 
  • Magic Carpet, The Staff Magazine of Air-India, Vol. 6, No. 8. October 1962. Released on the 30th Anniversary of the First Airmail Flight of Tata Sons piloted by JRD Tata, Neville Vincent and Homi Barucha is stages, this entire issue is dedicated to the flight with lots of rare pictures and information. I have provided a link for you to view or download the pdf from my dropbox account.
 
  • A new page has been added in the Collections section under the Air-India Aircraft Gallery. This has images of Other Early Aircraft of Air-India International and its predecessor airlines.
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Updates to the web-site last week

16/7/2016

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  • I have added a Return Flight covers gallery in the Aerophilately section.

The Return flight left London on the morning of 12 June 1948, landing in Bombay on 13 June after halting at Geneva and Cairo. Return mail on this flight is not very common, and only a limited number are thought to exist. Each of the three points of origin have an interesting story, which I will recount in this page. Additionally, no mail originating from any other location has been seen.
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  • I've also started a Useful Links page. This will connect you to other web-sites and on-line resources that may be interesting and useful.
  • Had posted a link to the Aerophilately page on some Whatsapp groups, and other collectors posted some lovely images of covers from their collection related to the 1948 Air-India International first flight. Have asked them for jpg or jpeg images, and permission to post here.
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Margaret's Hope

15/7/2016

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My search for Air-India flight covers often results in very interesting discoveries. Here is one that has the 12 anna Air-India commemorative stamp on the Official Souvenir Cover, and is cancelled TUNG, 7 JUN 48, 2.20 PM. 'Tung! never heard of such a place, so let me find out more,' I said to myself.
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So, Google, the omnipresent, and omniscient, told me that Tung is a post office in Darjeeling (new name Darjiling), W. Bengal, with a Pin Code 734224. Ok, so the story starts getting more interesting. Then I flipped the cover around, and was fortunate to find the senders information on the reverse flap.
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The cover was sent by Lt. Col. L. Hannagan, Margaret's Hope Tea Estate, Tung, India. A tea estate in Darjeeling, makes sense, but a name like Margaret's Hope got to have a story around it. The present owner of tea estate, Goodricke's website has the very touching story on how it was named Margret's Hope.

Situated in north Kurseong at an elevation ranging from 950 meters to 1830 meters, the 150-year-old famous Margaret's Hope Tea Estate was once called Bara Ringtong. At the beginning of the 20th century, legend has it, the then-manager of Ringtong, Mr Bagdon, rechristened it as Margaret's Hope.

The wistful name refers to a great tragedy that befell Mr Bagdon in 1827.

Mr Bagdon, who was the first to plant tea on the southwest ridge of the Balsun River, had a daughter called Margaret. According to the tale, Margaret came all the way from Britain, visited the estate and fell in love with its sublime beauty. She was so taken by the region that she made up her mind to settle at the picturesque Bara Ringtong for good. But, much to her dismay, she had to return to England accompanied by her mother.

However, fate had other plans for Margaret and her hapless father. On her way back to England, during a tortuous four-month journey, Margaret took ill aboard and died on the way. Mr Bagdon continued his duties as the manager of the estate, but was overcome with grief. Sources say he had a vision of his departed daughter, while taking a walk through the estate and remembered how she had hoped she would live there one day. This singular experience inspired him to call the estate Margaret's Hope.

The Margaret's Hope estate is now spread across 586.16 hectares. Although set up in the 1830s, the garden became commercially viable only in 1864. Today, the garden's high-altitude tea buds are harvested in spring and are prized by connoisseurs all over the world.

After 150 years, Margaret's Hope continues to produce its renowned first flush (spring) tea, which has a flowery aroma and golden colour. Its second flush produces a mellow cup with a  muscatel character and bronze colour.

                                                                     Philatelic Interest

This cover is a great addition to our web-site, and very collectible for a variety of reasons. It missed the flight. No Post office should have accepted the cover in the mail after June 5. This was made quite clear in the DG's circular, and this was a contravention. Not only that, it was not supposed to be cancelled locally, but sent to Bombay for franking and onward dispatch. This was not done, another contravention. No Boxed cachet applied. Cancelled at Tung, an unusual place of origin, makes it even more interesting.

Many thanks to Arun Agarwal of Kanpur for procuring this beauty for me.

Update posted on 5 November 2016:
The story does not end here. Gaurav Gupta was kind enough to share images of a similar cover he obtained, with a slight twist. This is from the same Lt. Col. L. Hannagan, at Margaret's Hope Tea Estate, P.O. Tung, W. Bengal, India. However it is postally cancelled TUNG, 14 JUN 48. Now this makes it a highly collectable cover since it is later use of the stamp, and should not have been accepted by the postal authorities. I've posted images below:
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