“TIN-CAN” MAIL

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 217, 10 June 1936, Page 6

“TIN-CAN” MAIL

Opportunity to Obtain

Postmarks

The “tin-can” mail of Niuafoou has always caught the fancy of philatelists, and the announcement that the Monowai, which leaves Auckland 011 July 7, will call at Niuafoou in the course of a cruise to the South Sea Islands, will be of much interest to stamp-col-lectors. This remote little island of the Tongan Group, with a population of about .1000 natives and one or two white men. has no harbour and is usually dependent for Us mail on the very infrequent visits of itinerant schooners. Until fairly recently the natives swam out for the mail, which was put into a. sealed tin and thrown overboard and then retrieved from the sea by the swimmers. 'This was rather hazardous, and, owing to one of the natives being carried off by a shark, they now come out in canoes to pick up the cans, the outward mail from the island being hoisted on to the vessel by a line. The name of the “tincan” mail has even extended to Niuafoou itself, which is often known as “Tin-Can Island.”

To obtain postmarks of the “tin-can” mail envelopes should be properly addressed to the intended recipient and sent in another envelope to the Union Steam Ship Company, Auckland, to reach there before July G. with loose New Zealand stamps for 6d. for each envelope sent for postmarking (21d. for the necessary Tongan stamp and the balance for the islanders’ services in handling the mail). The envelopes should be of an adequate size to show off the postmarks satisfactorily, about six inches by five.

The envelopes will be landed at Niuafoou by the Monowai through the “tincan” mail, and after being dealt with there will be returned by a later opportunity. It may be two or three months before the letters reach the ad dressce, as apart from the infrequency of vessels calling at the island occasionally there is delay through the island’s supply of Tongan postage stamps running out.

Niuafoou is a strange little volcanic island about live miles in diameter, the whole centre of it being a crater lake surrounded by a ring of cliffs from the top of which there is generally a steep fall to the sea. There arc active cones on the island, and fairly recent, lavafields arc visible from the sea. It has two other claims to distinction: it produces the largest coconuts in the Pacific, and one of its few birds, the inalua, lays the largest egg iu proportion to its size of any bird in the world.