TASMAN AIR MAIL

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 51, 1 March 1934, Page 13

TASMAN AIR MAIL

RETURN TO DOMINION

After/-, waiting- mine ■ da^s1 for a mail to return from Sydney by steamer that took only. 14 hours to cross the Tasman by air, the hundreds of people in Wellington who addressed.' envelopes to themselves or to friends in the Dominion by Mr. Ci T., P.. Ulm's giant monoplane Faith in Australia received their philatelic prizes when tho Maraina veachea Wellington on Monday. The mail from New Zealand arrived in Sydney by the aeroplane on the evening of Saturday, February 17, but had an unusually-long wait between intercolonial steamers, being eventually taken' by the Marama. The occasion being the first official trans-Tasman air-mail flight, with' special surcharged air-mail stamps issued, many philatelists throughout the Dominion addressed letters, to themselves, affixing Australian stamps betore tho letters were posted. On arrival in Sydney these letters were stamped before being returned to New Zealand. Thp_ specially T printed envelopes- show a kiwi in the lower loft-hand corner and a kookaburra' at tho lower right. Besides the New Zealand air-mail stamp and the twopenny Australian stamps, the envelopes carried a perforated blue strip with the words: "By Air Mail Par Avion," upon it, This is used on many air-mail routes throughout the world. • ■ • ! ' Just above .the address and below the stamps the envelopes bear the following words:—"Per "VH-UXX, Faith in Australia—C. T. P. Ulm, 'Commander." A rubber stamp imprint, bearing the words "First Trans-Tasman Air Mail. t^Tew Zealand-Australia, February, 193.1,'' was also affixed, while another, on the reverse side of the envelope, revealed that it has passed through the air-mail sorting section of the Sydney G.P.O.