Great Barrier Pigeongram:
VP 2 - "Special Post"
Great Barrier Pigeon Post
1898 - 1904
VP 2 - Special Post
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Samuel Holden Howie was a young man still, and not as resourced as others. He started having trouble with his birds, and he started losing a few too. Hard work this flimsy carrying. He sought assistance from Parkin who had a solid loft of birds. The first batch of stamps were also running low (1500 of the 1800 had been given to collectors and dealers after all). Parkin was temporarily back to help out and a new design was prepared.
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An engraver by the name of R. Richardson did the work (not to be confused with the printer J. Richardson of Chalon fame!). A lot more elaborate than VP1, although for some reason the Swallow survived on the design. This sheet was printed with six types/stereos and 200 sheets of 24 (6 by 4) were produced giving a total of 4800. Wilson & Horton the printers of the NZ Herald did the job. The paper was gray and a thick soft version and a harder thinner version are known. Neither had a watermark.
As all the sheets appeared with no bottom margin there were theories about possible larger sheet sizes, but interestingly it seems its always the bottom margin that is missing - never the top - so bigger sheets seem unlikely, but you never know! There must have been something there or it could not have been perforated in the first place!!
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My own theory is they printed two blocks of 18 inverted and then separated the sheets to stack. Food for thought!
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The first day of issue was reportedly the 1 March 1899. However, even if the stamps might have been received 2 March 1899 on the steamer that day, there was no recorded use until 16 March 1899. However, none of those earlier flimsies have been found to date. The earliest surviving flimsy with VP2 is dated 1 April 1899.
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In The Collection we are fortunate to have a copy of a full flimsy written by Samuel Holden Howie himself - a beautiful piece which may have been damaged by the carrier pigeon pecking at once it had arrived at it's destination in Auckland?
VP 2 Special Post used flimsy dated 7 July 1899. Sent from Samuel Holden with a short message regarding the availability of pigeons, tied by very fine example of type 2 cancellation in violet.
The message reads: “Dear sir, I would esteem it a great favour on your part if you would kindly tell Mr Parkin that I will have all the birds down by Monday & oblige. Yours truly S.H. Howie."
The destination for pigeons carrying flimsies was the Samuel H. Howie's Pigeon Loft in Newton Road, Auckland. The pigeon loft still exists today, but the image below taken on 15 September 1899 gives you a feel for what it was like.
When flimsy mesaages arrived they needed to be tended to quickly or else the pigeons might start destroying the message by pecking them. When messages were received a receipt was written to acknowledge the pigeon had actually made it. Not all messages were received. Below a couple of receipts from the Pigeongram Service.
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Once messsages were received they were either delivered locally by being dropped off by a runner, or were mailed using the General Post Office system. Below is an unused envelope which would have been used to deliver the messages.
