The Philatelic Database – Archive of Stamp Collecting Articles

The establishment of the Compagnie Caledonniene des Nouvelles-Hebrides in 1892 was with the explicit aim of establishing French control in the New Hebrides. In 1887, alarmed missionaries persuaded the Victorian and N.S.W. governments to subsidize shipping services to and from New Hebrides and Australia. Figures 1a and 1b: Click to Enlarge

The Pacific ocean is the largest body of water in the world. The total area of the Pacific Ocean is estimated at 163,000,000 km or nearly 40 per cent of the whole water extent of the world.

This article provides a valuable insight into the postal and shipping arrangements for Pacific island in the early part of the 20th century. Postal historians should find it especially useful. Originally published in “Australian Stamp Journal” (October 1915).

This interesting first flight cover was one of the early Pan American services.

The Study Circle was founded in Great Britain in 1962 for collectors of the stamps and postal history of the smaller Pacific islands and the Indian Ocean islands of Christmas and Cocos (Keeling).

The Society of Australasian Specialists was founded in July 1936 by a small group of collectors interested in Australasian philately.

Here are postal rates for Fiji issued in 1921. PDb readers and especially postal historians find this sort of information useful. Should any of our members have postal rate information (from any period), we would be happy to publish them. Please contact the editor.

Where did the Gilbert and Ellice Islands go? They’re gone. I can’t find them on current maps. I can’t find them in travel books. They’re in my stamp album and they’re in my stamp catalogue. So they must be someplace, or did they sink into the ocean? The Scott catalogue says that the Gilbert and [...]