Submitted by aarAdmin on Mon, 06/30/2025 - 00:00
An envelope (lot 2048) taken on the 1919 England-Australia Air Race – a highlight of the Brian Peace collection of Australian Disaster Mail sold by Melbourne-based Abacus Auctions during its four-day sale of postal history, coins and stamps and sporting memorabilia from June 24-27 – sold for $9000.
George Matthews and Tom Kay, who carried the letter addressed to Mrs Mathew Wilson at Perth High School in Hay Street, Perth, Western Australia, were the first contestants to depart England on October 21, 1919 – 23 days before eventual winners, brothers Ross and Keith Smith.
From the outset, the pair ran into trouble, including being imprisoned by Bolsheviks in Yugoslavia.
Mathews and Kay finally reached Baghdad on January 24, 1920 where their Sopwith Wallaby aircraft was overhauled.
More trouble was encountered en route to Karachi with further damage inflicted at Delhi and Rangoon before their race ended on April 17 by crashing into a banana plantation in Bali – almost four months after the Smith brothers Vickers Vimy arrived in Darwin to claim the 10,000-pound prize.
With no aircraft left, Matthews and Kay continued by ship to Australia arriving in Sydney on June 11, where the cover was carried to Melbourne and then eventually on to Perth.
An 1866 Queensland envelope (lot 2004), a lone survivor from one of the robberies carried out during the 19th century by Australian bushrangers on famed Cobb & Co coaches, brought $8500.
Registered letters, which often contained banknotes, were a favourite for bushrangers looking for easy riches.
However, the envelopes, once opened, were usually tossed aside – so for one to survive is unusual, its unique status recorded in Brian Peace’s “Mail Robberies by Bushrangers” in 2011.
Now 80, he is a trained architect, pilot, author and philanthropist who began collecting stamps at age five, branching out into postal history as an adult.
A July 1931 flight from Australia to England carrying the only recorded stampless envelope addressed to a Commander Price in Akyab, Burma (lot 2077) was a $3800 sale.
Piloted by Andrew Cunningham, en route the aircraft made four forced landings in swamps – near Bourke NSW, on Flores in Dutch East Indies, just short of Singapore airport and on Ranee Island in Burma.
The same result was achieved for the only envelope (lot 2094) carried on Jean Batten’s three 1933-34 flights from England to Australia.
The first flight ended with a crash at Karachi, the second a crash at Rome with the third attempt successful despite being bombarded by embers from a volcanic eruption near Timor.
Famous Australian aviator Sir Charles Kingsford Smith carried lot 2079, addressed to a Mr Lawson at the Vacuum Oil Company in London, that sold for $3200 and the only cover carried for the entire journey, on his September 24, 1931 flight on Southern Cross Minor.
After leaving Aleppo in Syria, Kingsford Smith became unwell from a leaky exhaust pipe spewing out carbon monoxide and was forced to land in Turkish territory where he was arrested and interrogated.
Another cover (lot 2064) dated October 30, 1927 and destined for Calcutta, that brought the same amount, had an even more eventful journey from England.
Carried by pioneering Australian aviators Captain Bill Lancaster and Jessie Miller, they arrived in Darwin five months later but forgot to deliver what is now the only surviving cover from the journey.
On the return Calcutta leg, where Lancaster had left all their money which subsequently vanished, they stopped at Rangoon. After taking off, they found on board a poisonous snake which Miller beat to death with a stick.
An almost fatal crash en route to Batavia, because Lancaster forgot to switch on the fuel pump, delayed the couple an additional four months while the plane was rebuilt.
