Royal Reels: Gambling

Places

RABAT, FRENCH MOROCCO from CABRAMATTA, N.S.W. REGISTERED LETTER

This cover has a fine vignette of the 150th Anniversary, Sydney Souvenir Cover (1788-1938) with a map of Australia, a portrait of Captain Cook, an Aborigine, a kookaburra, a kangaroo, an emu, and a stylized central picture of the Settlement of Port Jackson in 1788. The cover was printed in Cabramatta (see lower right hand corner of vignette) and it has a registration label for Cabramatta, N.S.W. It has the blue

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QUONG TART’s TEA ROOM, QUEEN VICTORIA BUILDING, SYDNEY & HIS TRIP to CHINA

When Governor Lachlan Macquarie arrived in New South Wales in 1810 he found the colony’s main landing place disturbed by the produce. Livestock and poultry of the daily water front market at King’s Wharf. He ordered the market to be moved to a more convenient location in a paddock bordered by George Street to the east, York Street to the west and the colon’s first cemetery on the south. A

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PEABODY MUSEUM of AMERICAN ARCHEOLOGY & ETHNOLOGY at HARVARD

The Commonwealth of Australia, New South Wales postcard has a printed red 1d ‘Shield stamp of N.S.W. which was perfined OS/ NSW and a blue-green ½d QV stamp has been added, and it was also perfined OS/ NSW. The stamps were postmarked with a roller cancel of SYDNEY/ NSW/ 1911, and the postcard was addressed to the Librarian, Peabody Museum of American Archeology & Ethnology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

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MOLONGLO SETTLEMENT

My interest in Molonglo Settlement was piqued a year ago, when I won an auction lot of 300 NSW postmarks on KGV Heads, which contained 3 copies of this postmark, all dated 1924, and all on the red 1½d KGV Head (ASC 66). I considered this a rather unusual frequency for a relatively uncommon postmark, but the lack of significant information on the internet re the Settlement, made me put the

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MELBOURNE-LA SERENA via MONTEVIDEO, URUGUAY & VALPARAISO, CHILE

The routing of this Victorian postcard has long given me concerns, and I still am not sure why it went via Uruguay to La Serena, Chile. The postcard is unique, for Victoria was the only Colony to accord postal commemoration of the new Commonwealth when a series of postcards was issued on the ‘eve’ of Federation. The design of the series featured a heading with the letters “AC” (Australian Commonwealth)

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MELBOURNE, PER S.S. MOANA to WALLA WALLA, 1902 [USA]

Australians may have heard of the small New South Wales town of Walla Walla which is 26 km south-west of Culcairn, at least double that distance north of the border towns of Albury, N.S.W.-Wodonga, Victoria, and 554 km south-west of Sydney. But the fact that this letter set sail on the S.S. Moana should alert them to the fact that this Walla Walla was elsewhere. The first Europeans to pass

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MELBOURNE to THE COMMERCIAL MUSEUM, FOREIGN TRADE BUREAU, PHILADELPHIA

The censored cover has the ‘Opened by Censor’ label with 3 dots as well as a purple boxed PASSED BY/ CENSOR/ V 97 and the blue 3d KGVI stamp is postmarked with a roller cancel ‘EAT APPLES/ FOR HEALTH’ with a MELBOURNE/ 130 PM/ 11 APR/1940/ VIC AUST. It was addressed to The Connercial Museum, Foreign Trade Bureau, 34th Street below Spruce, Philadelphia. The sender’s name was partially obscured by the

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MELBOURNE to BANNINGVILLE, BELGIAN CONGO

Australian covers to the former Belgian Congo are not common. The present cover provides information concerning the routing within the Belgian Congo in the year 1937. A registered cover from Melbourne identifies the sender on the reverse as W.I. Urquhart, 125 Domain Road, Melbourne S.E.1. It is addressed to M(onsieur) Fernand Trokay with the simple address of Banningville, Belgian Congo, Africa. The front of the cover has a blue R.6

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MAJOR R.E. SMITH, SECRETARY, CRADLE MOUNTAIN RESERVE BOARD & GUSTAV WEINDORFER

The On His Majesty’s Service cover has a printed WWW 2 Government advertisement “Lend to Defend Buy War Savings Certificates” and it is addressed to Major R.E. Smith, Secretary, Cradle Mountain Reserve Board, 17 Trevallyn Crescent, Launceston. The sender is identified as the Lands and Surveys Department, Hobart. The red 2½d KGVI stamp, which has a ‘T’ perfin, is cancelled with a roller cancel and a boxed HOBART/ 8-PM/ 2 19 MCH 2/

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LT. G.A. SHELDRICK, P.O.W., AGAZZAND, RAZZANELLO, PIACENZA, ITALY

Two identical Italian postcards for the same Australian soldier came available on eBay addressed to the same unidentified person, Mr. W. Lafranchi, 25 Pender Street, Preston, Victoria. Only one cover was dated in Italy, 22.2.42 (top R.H. corner). The cards were both printed as Poste Italiene Cartolini Postale Per Prigionieri Di Guerra, and both had various Passed by Censor handstamps, most of Italian origin includia a 2-line VERIFICATO/ PER CENSURA.

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