Tinselled Tasmanian Postcards

[Des_Beechey]

Attached is front and back of a card from Geeveston, dated 1907. It seems to have been personalised by writing the message in glue and then applying glitter. This card is interesting because it is from a member of the Geeves family, who was probably only a generation removed from the Geeves after which the town was named.

I assume the basic card was an easily available made-in-England card? Are such un-adorned cards now common? Who was the publisher, and how were they distributed at Geeveston in 1907?

Ross told me that the Post Office banned glitter cards. Why was that? Did they have franking machines that were jammed up by the glitter?

Sorry, more questions than answers, but a interesting card.

Des Beechey, Sydney (ex Geeveston)

PostcardFront.jpg (86.48 KiB) Viewed 2073 times

[Jeffharris]

About 12 years ago I asked a prominent South Australian collector of old postcards the reason why glitter postcards had been prohibited from being accepted by the Post Office. He told me that the glitter on the postcards sometimes cut the hands of the postmen when they where placing the cards in the recipient's letter box. I thought that this explanation was a bit odd, but he insisted that this was correct!

[Ross Ewington]

Here's an image of one of the two known postcards with the endorsement
"Transmission of Tinselled Post Cards Prohibited". The earliest recorded date of the
rubber handstamp with similar wording is February 3rd 1908.

w285.jpg (170.44 KiB) Viewed 2063 times

This card realised AU$625 + 10% buyer's premium (Tasmanian Stamp Auctions June 19th 2010 Postal Auction, Lot 348)

P.S. I was always told that the reason that tinselled card were prohibited was that the loose tinsel was simply because it
was messing up the postie's bags!

[Des_Beechey]

Two articles in The Mercury in 1908 say exactly why tinsel cards were banned:

22 Jan 1908
DANGEROUS POSTCARDS.
Those delightful confections of colour and tinsel which have such a large sale in picture postcard shops have been found by the postal authorities to be engines of destruction. The tinsel is composed of emery powder and powdered glass, and it adheres only loosely to the cards, so that when they are being hurried though the mailroom in the process of date-marking and sorting, they leave behind a small cloud of sharp, cutting dust. This dust finds its way into the lungs and nostrils of the unfortunate postal employees and sets up an irritation which is the frequent forerunner of serious pulmonary trouble. With the use of the date-marking machine, the flying powders are carried into the working parts of the machine, where they soon cause grooves and erosions which interfere with the working of the machine, and entail constant repairs. In these circumstances tinsel postcards have been prohibited in the United Kingdom and New Zealand. Similar action has now been taken in the Commonwealth. On Saturday the Postmaster-General formally signed an order prohibiting the sending of such cards through the post.

6 March 1908
TINSEL POSTCARDS.
Because they injuriously affected the lungs and throats of the sorters at the General Post Office, Melbourne, and also because the stuff out of which tinsel is made grinds away the working parts of the stamping machines, tinsel postcards are not sorted or despatched by the officials at the Post Office. A notice to this effect was issued some time ago by the Central Postal Bureau; but it seems to have done nothing to lessen the posting of them. Every day 100 to 200 of these prohibited cards are posted, and picked out by the sorting staff. They never bear the names and addresses of senders, and cannot therefore be returned. The practice followed is to destroy them. These cards, if enclosed in envelopes, can be transmitted through the post, but not otherwise.

So in Melbourne they were getting 100-200 tinsel cards a day in 1908! It sure was the golden age of postcards.

[Ross Ewington]

thanks Des ...excellent detective work!