Queen Vic 1d postcards

[shatten]

Good evening all, I have about 30 examples of the common Queen Vic 1d postcard, and have checked them against Mr Ingles' chapter on postal stationery within Tinsley's "Stamps and Postal History of Tasmania". This exercise was not straight-forward.

Has anyone else undertaken the same exercise? I'd be interested to know of any anomalies that may have been found.

And are there any other reference works on these cards? The TPS Library? Back issues of the Courier?

Any assistance will be appreciated.

[Ross Ewington]

That's an interesting project Allen!

Basically, the main source of information is the Higgins & Gage postal stationery catalog read in conjunction with Owen Ingle's chapter in "Tinsley".
That's about it I think except for the occasional journal article ... I'll have a look through David McNamee's bibliography and see if I can find anything that
may be useful.

I think that except that as a source of postmarks and postal history "interest" as well as privately overprinted notices, etc., the cards in their own right have been a little neglected by comparison
with the lettercards, wrappers, registered envelope, PTPO stationery, etc.

Perhaps your inquiry may "fire up" some other postal stationery collectors to have a bit of a discussion about the cards in this forum.

[shatten]

The project continues... the only additional reference I have found so far in in Courier no 48, "The QV Lithographed Postcard" by John Shepherd, which deals with the 1903/4 emergency printing.

Summarising Mr Ingles in Tinsley: The original printings of this card were by De La Rue. There were three plates, distinguished by the distance between the stop after "SIDE" and the edge of the stamp image. For Plate B the distance is 5.5 mm and for Plates C & D the distance is 6 mm.

The subsequent Tasmanian printings are of generally poorer quality than those from De La Rue and show many variations. I have found that the most reliable way to pick the De La Rue printings is by looking at the hair on the back of the unicorn's head through a magnifier. If you can see individual hairs or strands, it's a De La Rue.

Mr Ingles quotes measurements of the card itself to help identification. I haven't found this to be reliable - maybe the paper shrinks or expands very slightly over time. The "stop to stamp" measurement has to be taken carefully. If your ruler is aligned to the bottom of the instruction line ("THE ADDRESS......") the difference between the two varieties is clear.

For plates C/D, Mr Ingles gives an earliest date of 3 Aug 1885. The attached example is Plate C/D and is dated 5 April 1885. I had no idea of this when I bought it on eBay - you never know what will turn up.

The addressee, Miss Lucy Bisdee, was an ancestor of the Tasmanian MP Mr Lewis Bisdee (toastmaster at our wedding).

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