Axman
Member Posts: 726
From: Derbyshire UK
Registered: Mar 2023
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posted 03-22-2025 06:48 AM
   
I have just taken possession of a remarkable relic from the past. It is an exhibition of philatelic covers and associated material compiled by the renowned airmail collector Dr. Max Kronstein.It is undated, but I believe, based on style, content and construction, it is probably from either the late 1950s or early 1960s. The exhibition shows the history of rocket mail experiments in Australia by the Queensland Airmail Society and its descendants in the 1930s. The exhibitor (Max Kronstein) clearly knew the principals who ran the society, including the President (Alan H Young) and Hon. Secretary (Neil Morrison). The 11 covers produced by the Queensland Airmail Society and Australian Rocket Society are well known to any collector of early 1930s rocket mail experiments, and all but the impossible to find "Fisherman's Bend" cover are more than adequately represented within this exhibit. But, and the reason I am posting this, this exhibit has some extraordinary material in it. Newspaper clippings, original photographs, cover contents, journal reports, and vignettes. The most remarkable of all though are the contents of page 15. It has a flown item from the Orion rocket that flew on 24 February 1936, a handkerchief stamped with the rocket cachets for that flight. I have scoured the literature and can find no mention of this flown article; it doesn't feature in Ellington-Zwisler's Rocket Mail Catalog, nor in Walter Hopferweiser's Pioneer Rocket Mail book. A new find then!  There are 23 sheets in total. The sheets are of acid-free composition, medium density, and sized 11.5 by 11 inches. The left hand side of each sheet has a corrugated indentation pattern to allow free bending when clamped into an old fashioned springed-clamp hinge album. Each sheet is marked in feint green printing with ELBE in an oval, and Washington Sheet No. 1372 Printed in U.S.A. A synopsis of the contents is as follows:
F. Frontispiece with typed title on a label.
- SS Canonbar to Brisbane 4 December 1934, two covers showing obverse and reverse.
- Sheet of four labels for first flight plus typed description of first flight attached as separate sheets.
- Brisbane Daily Telegraph clipping of first flight.
- * Sheet 4 is either missing or more probably subsequent sheets were incorrectly numbered.
- Two covers from 11 August 1935 flight from Fraser Island to wrecked steamer SS Mahena, signed by Young, Morrison, and Tanaka.
- Two covers from SS Mahena to Fraser Island
- (see image)
- Sheets of labels for both 11 August 1935 starts.
- Postcard and Registered cover for 28 October 1935 rocket "Zodiac"
- two sheets of four labels, one signed, for the Zodiac launch.
- Tissue-paper flown sheet content for Zodiac flight.
- clipping of local news report of Zodiac flight.
- Cover, and original photos of delayed Orion flight, 24 February 1936.
- tissue-paper flown sheet (see image).
- (see image above)
- Quarterly bulletin of Indian Airmail Society re. Orion flight.
- RO-3 rocket flight 8 March 1937 cover and photo.
- (see image)
- Quarterly bulletin of Indian Airmail Society re. RT-6 rocket.
- Cover, newspaper clip, and photo of RT-6 flight 13 July 1936.
- Cover, newspaper cartoon & clip, and photo of RT-7 rocket flight 24 September 1936.
- signed statement by Morrison and Young regarding March 1937 rocket starts.
- Final, Coronation rocket firing signed statement and cover.
A small selection of images follows. If anybody is interested in images of other sheets, please send me an email. 
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