Further query on East African AMLC

[Michael Dobbs]

This is definately one for our East African collectors / experts!

I have received the attached queries from an individual - they are detailed and complex, can anyone out there able to provide any answers or suggestions please?

Thanks, Mike

[Neil Williams]

Re the second item:

Fascinating!

I can confirm the Madagascar franking of 4Fr is the base rate for an international surface letter.

The additional franking of 5/75 EAS would be about right for either a double weight airmail to the USA via the UK, or a base rate airmail to the USA via the West Africa route (air all the way, much quicker). Transit marks , if any, would help on that.

The only conjecture I can think of for the KUT stamps being applied with the locals, is that whichever route/carrier was intended would at that time accept British, but not French/Madagascar mails, and to get around that there was some form of 'wheeze' between the Tananarive PO and the APO.

Neil W

[Ross Debenham]

This is a very interesting cover. First off, the III/02 censor marker was in use in 1942 as I have a cover from Mombasa with it in that year. It is interesting that the cover does not appear to be post marked in Mombasa but at APO 84, supposedly in Nairobi. It was not unusual for outlying FPO's to accept payment from the sender and dispatch the money to the envelope with the money to Nairobi where the stamps were applied. This happened in more FPOs than listed by Rossiter. I personally have not seen the Madagascar example previously. It usually happened because of a lack of KUT stamps at the originating FPO. There is another example at Page 74 in Rossiters handbook, this time with GB stamps applied, and this time addressed to Panama. I just wonder if the KUT stamps were attached in Nairobi.

[Nick Guy]

I have some thoughts that may be useful - but it raises rather a large number of queries and I found my posting grew and grew! In fact it ended up so large that I have attached it as a Word document - I hope anyone interested will find it easier to manage in that form. Even so, there remain points on which I have not been able to offer anything useful.

[Neil Williams]

I read Nick's thoughts concerning the Madagascan cover with interest (the ALC is beyond my ken!). I am on the same wavelength concerning the mixed franking, and have the same experience of mutilated censor tapes! 

I have one example of the same triangular mark on an envelope from Aden (11/11/42) to Canada, RAF censor at Aden, franked 44as, clearly endorsed PAN AMERICAN AIR MAIL. Alongside the item under discussion, I think it quite likely this mark was applied at Lagos, where the mail was being sorted/transferred for the Atlantic Pan-am/Air Transport Command service to Miami, or potentially in Miami (or even Khartoum?) - WASC members please comment!!

Later Aden mail on this route, which is scarce compared to Via UK, have no marks other than normal USPS postal delivery.

[Michael Dobbs]

I have received a reply from the person who made this enquiry (you will know who it is from below) who is extremely grateful for the information that you provided and wishes me to pass on his grateful thanks for the trouble you have taken.

He states that prior to receiving your responses an article had been placed in the latest issue of the GEOSIX Journal (No 285, September 2022) "East Africa Stamps, Postmarks and Censorship of Air Mail from Madagascar 1942-4" – Ronnie Winchester and Brian Livingstone FRPSL, but that your responses have added a lot more and when they have gone through it in detail they will have to put in a follow up though they are beginning to drift away from George VI stamps into rates and routes and censorship.

I will try and upload a copy of the said article, provided its not too large a file size for our forum.
Because if its size I have had to divide it into two - this attachment is the first five pages,  The remaining pages will follow in a new response!

Thanks, Mike

[Michael Dobbs]

The remaining pages of the article mentioned below are attached.