New Zealand issued airmail stamps for the first time on 10 November 1931. However, some stamps were sold in Highfield (Timaru) on 9 November.
All the Highfield covers contain the full set of airmail stamps and are postmarked Highfield on 9 November, the day before the stamps were officially issued.
The example cover is to England and is routed via the Karachi-London Air Mail Service. Mail from New Zealand to the UK was first sent by sea to Sydney. The routing instructions would mean that it was then sent by sea from Sydney to Karachi.
However, it has the cachet of the first All Australian Airmail in which Christmas mail was flown all the way from Australia to London. As there are examples of that cachet being applied in error, the question of which service was used remains.
The following three points show that the cover was flown on the All Australian Airmail of Charles Kingsford Smith and Scotty Allan.
- As the All Australian Airmail was via Karachi, it does not go against the routing instructions.
- The cover is addressed to J S Davis, a well known dealer. It was his normal practice to redirect letters in order to get a dated receiving mark. This backstamp is dated Liverpool December 17, the day after the All Australian Airmail arrived in London. (According to Proud, p 321 [3], the corresponding Karachi - London flight did not arrive in London until 17 December.)
- The postage rate for the Karachi - London airmail was 7d plus 2d surface postage while the rate for the All Australian Airmail service was 1/- plus 2d surface postage. The cover carries stamps to the value of 1/4, which is sufficient for the All Australian Airmail.
Conclusion
It seems clear that the sender intended the cover to be sent by the regular Karachi - London service and the reason that it carried extra postage was purely philatelic - i.e. to have the complete set of airmail stamps.
According to the Airmails of New Zealand, vol 2, some covers flown on the special internal flight and intended for the Karachi-London service also received this cachet. However it was noticed that some of these covers that did not carry sufficient postage for the All Australian Airmail and they were sent by sea to Karachi. (The 3d fee for the internal airmail meant that a cover with the full airmail set plus 2d surface postage would be 1d short of the required postage.)
It therefore seems that the authorities decided that, provided a cover carried sufficient postage, mail for the UK would be sent by the (supposedly much faster) service provided by the All Australian Airmail.
Other Highfield covers
The covers were all sent by Alex F M Paterson, the first President of the Airmail Society of New Zealand. He was from Timaru and was the originator of many covers of the period, often addressing the letters to himself. The covers all have Paterson's name and address on the back in purple produced by a rubber stamp.
I have seen several other Highfield covers described in articles or auctions. They were sent mainly to other aerophilatelists or dealers. Links are given to other covers in this website that are addressed to the same people.
A second cover {2} addressed to Davis in Liverpool is depicted in an article [4] while a third one {3} was offered on eBay in June 2008.
The scan of the cover on the left {4} was sent to me by its owner, John Desbois. It is addressed to Alex Paterson himself c/o R Dalwick in Bournemouth. Another Highfield cover {5} addressed to Dalwick is shown on the front cover of the Stapleton catalogue [2] while a third cover {6} to the same address was sold on eBay in August 2004.
Walker [1] describes a cover to Greece and such a cover {7} is shown on the website of the Air Mail Society of New Zealand. The cover is addressed to Alex Paterson c/o the famous dealer P J Drossos. A similar, but different, cover {8} was offered in an auction in 2003. It is routed via the Karachi - London service and was backstamped in Greece on 15 December. Scott reports that a third cover {9} to Greece exists [5].
A cover {10} to Calcutta was advertised in an auction in 2005.
A cover to America {11}, addressed to
Alex Paterson c/o
the famous dealer A C Roessler
was offered for sale in 2003 while
Scott reports a cover {12} addressed to Roessler
himself[5].
A cover to Haiti {13}, via USA, was offered in 2004
in the sale of the Mike Shand Collection.
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The first two scans were made by the author.
Information on this page is taken from:
[1] Airmails of New Zealand, volume 2 (1986)
compiled by Douglas A Walker,
[2] New Zealand Airmail Catalogue, (2nd Edition, 1994),
James Stapleton, published by the
Airmail Society of New Zealand
[3] The Postal History of British Airmails, E. B. Proud, 1991.
[4] Christmas Air Mails, Audrey Mallin, Air Mail News, vol 32, issue 143,
pp 81-85, December 1989.
[5] Highfield Covers, B Scott, New Zealand Air Mail News, no 658, May 2006.