Farming in New Zealand 26.4.1978

Maria gave me this lovely FDC. This issue centred on the Centenary of Lincoln University College of Agriculture, and its special relationships throughout New Zealand's agricultural industries.

The College was founded in 1878 on 100,000 acres of pastoral land that had been set aside for the purpose by the Provincial Council of Canterbury. Mr W E Ivey was appointed the first director of the College.  Grassland farming is New Zealand's most important industry and the source of over 80 percent of the country's exports.  The College continues to develop its resources to meet the challenges of modern agricultural needs - through the application of the findings of research, use of machinery, topdressing of pasture and efficient agricultural management.

The stamps shown on the cover are :-

Centenary of Lincoln College (1878 - 1978) - 10c Ivey Hall and students.

Centenary of Lincoln College (1878 - 1978) - 12c The rural agricultural nature of the College is illustrated on this stamp with sheep, rolling hills, grasslands and trees.

Fertiliser Groundspreading - 15c The spreading of bulk fertiliser is an important part of efficient agricultural management.  The bulk fertiliser ground-spread industry has grown - in techniques and capacity - to meet the widespread challenges of our agricultural society.

Agriculture Field Days - 16c Farming skills are demonstrated to enthusiastic audiences at organised field days. here a tractor is shown ploughing.

Harvesting Grain - 20c Cereal and grain farming sectors are portrayed on this stamp, reaping the fruits of the harvest, so essential to the daily lives of man and beast.

Dairy Farming - 30c Dairy farming and the important role cattle play in the New Zealand economy are represented by the cattle which, in New Zealand's mild climate, can graze outdoors throughout the year.

1975 New Zealand Definitives - Roses 28.11.1975

Another delightful first day cover from my dear friend Maria. Roses, which are very popular in New Zealand and grow particularly well, were chosen as the subject of a new Definitive stamp issue in 1975. They were issued on 26th November 1975.

The rose has long been the most popular flower and references to its beauty can be found far back in history.  In those far gone days it blossomed in the wild as a simple flower of five petals only; from those original species the creations of the present day have evolved - through natural cross fertilisation and selective breeding by hybridists. The stamps are: 1c Sterling Silver, 2c Lilli Marlene, 3c Queen Elizabeth, 4c Super Star, 5c Diamond Jubilee, 6cCresset, 7c Michele Meilland, 8c Josephine Bruce and the 9c Iceberg. The names are quaint aren't they?

1975 Health Stamp Issue 6.8.1975

The 1975 Health Stamp Issue incorporated the theme of children and animals. The animals depicted in the designs are typical of those New Zealand children might grow up with in rural areas.

The proceeds of the 'Health' value of health stamps were donated to the Children's Health Camps movement.

3c + 1c. Girl feeding a Lamb.

4c + 1c. Boy with Hen and Chickens.

5c + 1c. Boy pulling Duck in Wagon.

Thank you Maria for this lovely FDC.

1977 Health Stamp Issue3.8.1977

The 1977 Health Stamp Issue featured a 'children in the woods' theme. The proceeds of the 'Health' value of health stamps were donated to the Children's Health Camps movement.

7c + 2c. Girl with a pigeon.

8c + 2c. Boy with Frog.

10c + 2c. Girl with Butterfly.

Thank you Maria for this nice FDC with the pretty stamps.

Health stamps 1973 - Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex 1.8.1973

These two stamps were issued in the on going series on Health that New Zealand issues regularly. 

These stamps featuring Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex KG GCVO ADC(P) (Edward Antony Richard Louis; born 10 March 1964) were issued on 1.8.1973. Part of the cost of the stamps in the form of a surcharge goes towards improving national health services. 

Prince Edward is the third son and fourth (and youngest) child of Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. At the time of his birth, he was third in the line of succession to the thrones of ten independent sovereign states known as theCommonwealth realms; however, after the births of two children each to his two elder brothers, and an evolution of the Commonwealth, Prince Edward is now seventh in line to the thrones of sixteen countries: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize, Antigua and Barbuda, and Saint Kitts and Nevis.

Thank you Maria for this nice FDC.

Anniversaries and events Issue of stamps 7.2.1973

This 1973 Commemorative Stamp Issue marked the anniversaries and events listed below. Thank you Maria for this impressive Anniversaries FDC.

The 3c design was completed by Vivian Jepsen, with the remaining five designs completed by B Langford.

Centennial of Thames Borough - 3c
The design shows old Pollen Street with the hills behind highlighted in symbolic gold.  Thames is a town with 7000 people, at the foot of the Coromandel Peninsula. Gold was first discovered nearby the town in the early 1850s, but it wasn't until an arrangement had been reached with the local Maori to allow prospecting of the area that a major strike was found in 1867. By 1870 the town of Shortland, as it was then called, had been established  with a population of around 20 000, greater than that of Auckland at that time.

Centennial of Westport Borough - 4c
Coal mining and pastoral development, major factors in Westport's economy, are shown in symbolic form.  Westport is a town with 4600 people, near the mouth of the Buller River, 105 km north-east of Greymouth. It is the commercial and administrative town and also the port for the Buller region, where the main industries are coal, saw-milling and farming. A Nelson surveyor, John Rochfort, discovered coal and gold in the region in 1859 and, within two years, a settlement was established.

Centennial of the University of Canterbury - 5c
A cloister, one of the features of the old University buildings, was included within the stamp design.  Canterbury University was established as Canterbury College in 1873 by the Provincial Council. Initially it had a staff of three professors and 87 students.

50th Anniversary of the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society - 6c
This design incorporates the features important to this Society - forest and bird against a lake setting.

Olympic Rowers - 8c
The success of New Zealand rowers at the 1972 Olympics was the highlight of years of dedicated training and devotion to the sport.  Rowing, as a competitive sport, is believed to have begun in NZ on Lyttelton Harbour on New Year's Day in 1862. A number of clubs had formed throughout the country by the time the New Zealand Amateur Rowing Association was formed at a meeting of the representatives of nine clubs in 1887.  New Zealand's greatest rowing triumph came at the Olympic Games at Munich in 1972, when the eight won the gold medal (Hurt, Veldman, Joyce, Hunter, Wilson, Earle, Coker, Robertson, and Dickie, the cox), and the four (Tonks, Storey, Collinge and Mills) won the silver in their event.

25th Anniversary of the Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE) - 10c
Depicted in symbolic form is the aim of the Commission - "progress through co-operation".

Birth Centenary of Lord Rutherford 1.12.1971

Maria gave me this Cover with two stamps which were issued on 1^st December, 1971, to commemorate the centenary of the birth of Lord Rutherford.

Rutherford was born at Spring Grove in the province of Nelson in 1871.  He became one of the greatest scientific scholars of all time, and for his outstanding work in the field of atomic physics was created a knight, and later earned a peerage as Baron Rutherford of Nelson.  His greatest contribution to science was when he propounded the nuclear theory of the atom, previously thought to be indivisible, following experiments by another famous New Zealand scientist, Dr Ernest Marsden and himself on the bombardment of metal foils with the alpha particles emitted by radium. Rutherford's work enabled others to harness energy from radioactive materials. 

The two stamps depict this scientist as shown below.

1c. Lord Rutherford with a molecular structure.

7c. Lord Rutherford with a chemical formula.

1978 Health Stamps 2.8.1978

The 1978 Health Stamp Issue comprised two stamps - one marking the 50th anniversary of the issue of the first Health stamp and the other recognising the work of the National Heart Foundation.

Each stamp had a surcharge which helped finance New Zealand's six permanent health camps maintained by the Children's Health Camps Board.

10c + 2c. This stamp features a reproduction of the design of the first Health stamp issued in 1929.  A nurse is depicted on this stamp with the slogan "Help stamp out Tuberculosis".

12c + 2c. This stamp recognises the work of the National Heart Foundation and features a heart operation in progress together with the Foundation's emblem.

Thank you Maria for this very nice FDC.

Children and the Sea 6.10.1980

1980 Health Stamp Issue had a "Marine Environment" theme with the designer depicting various methods of fishing. 

The proceeds of the 'Health' value of health stamps were donated to the Children's Health Camps movement.

14c + 2c x 2

Two se tenant stamps depicting two children wharf fishing and another surf-casting. And the third,

17c + 2c
Underwater spear-fishing. 

Thank you Maria for this lovely FDC.

Anniversaries and Events 9.6.1971

This 1971 Commemorative Stamp Issue marked the 10th Anniversary of the Antarctic Treaty and the 25th Anniversary of the United Nations Children's Fund. Maria gave me this nice FDC. A brief description of the two stamps on it are given below.

The 10th Anniversary of the Antarctic Treaty - 6c
The symbolic design is based on an impression of the constant high winds and swirling movement of the landscape - mountains, snowdrifts, storm-whipped seas and the transparent blues and greens which abound in Antarctic.

25th Anniversary of the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund - 7c
UNICEF was established in 1946 with the object of protecting children all over the world against hunger, disease and ignorance.  The stamp design features a child on a swing symbolising the celebration of what has been achieved.

Life Insurance First Day Cover 3.3.1973

What is an insurance business doing with its own stamps? A philosophy held by New Zealand Governments until the late 20th Century was that it was a good idea for government to be involved in many fields of commerce - so as to keep the others honest. Insurance was one of those fields. The Government started a Government Life Insurance Department in 1869. It did not restrict itself to life insurance and late in its existence sold other sorts of policies. A lighthouse was used as its corporate symbol. When sea travel was the only way New Zealand was linked to the rest of the world and a common experience of many, the symbolism of safety aligned with a lighthouse must have been more powerful than perhaps it is today. As a government insurance business, it gained the right to use its own stamps after disagreements with the Post Office about how much postage it owed. Of course it chose to use lighthouses on its stamps. The stamps were available to collectors through the post office but were never authorised for general use. First day covers were available to general purchasers. Only the business could use them for general postage though there was an exception applying only on the first day of issue of the 1947 series.

The words New Zealand do not appear on any of the stamps - only the common abbreviation, N.Z. Nor did the monarch's portrait ever appear in the series. These are both indications of how the series was kept separate from the normal issues of the Post Office.
Customers and agents of the business who were also philatelists then collected a small bonus in postally used stamps. Postally used stamps of the 1947 onwards issues are not that common and some catalogues even show them at a premium over mint. Few were used internationally. The name of the business changed from "Department" to "Office" and this shows on the later stamps.In reality the insurance operation which went under the Government's name was a mutual insurance company with a relatively light Government involvement. In 1989 the Government stepped back from any involvement leaving it entirely in the hands of the policy holders. Consistent with this the "government" part of the name was dropped and it became Tower Insurance. It de-mutualised in 1999 and is now Tower Corporation. The use of the name Tower and the ongoing use of a lighthouse as a corporate symbol reflects its history. Inflation was rampant in the 70's and new values were needed. Two new values were issued (1976). They were John Berry's last stamp designs. The 2½c was also overprinted as a 25c stamp (1978). 08 March 1978 New Zealand Life Insurance First Day Cover, 25c on 2½c Puysegur Point Lighthouse, with Government Life Insurance Office cover. Postmarked at Wanganui. Maria sent me this cover.

Sea and its Resources 7.6.1978

Maria sent me this lovely cover with the five stamps issued on 07 June 1978, which describes the importance of the sea in New Zealand. Within New Zealand there is keen interest in the extent of the sea's resources and how they can be used. This set of stamps focused on the sea and its resources. Brief details of what is featured on the stamps is as given below :-

Mineral and Fuel - Maui Gas - 12c
This stamp features the Maui gas drilling platform situated 53 km off the Taranaki Coast. The gas field over which it stands was discovered in 1969 and is among the 20 largest in the world.

Harvest of the Sea - 15c
Harvesting the produce of the sea has always been an expensive business. Modern fishermen operate craft with sophisticated equipment such as the trawler depicted. This kind of vessel represents a large financial investment.

200 Mile Exclusive Economic Zone - 20c
Legislation provided New Zealand with a 200 mile (322 km) exclusive economic zone, giving greater control over the resources of the waters surrounding our shores.

Conservation of Marine Mammals - 23c
With the gradual increase in the number of whales, the Government considered a marine mammal protection act under which it would be able to protect marine mammals within the economic zone. Research continues into mammal species about which little is known. Dolphins and a whale are depicted on the stamp.

Fish species - 35c
Some of the more common fish taken commercially by the fishing industry and found in New Zealand waters are featured on this stamp - kingfish, snapper, groper and squid.