The organizing committee of the Tarapex 69 Stamp Exhibition decided to issue a miniature sheet of four labels for promotion of the exhibition and fundraising. The theme of three of these labels was Captain Cook since 1969 was going to be the Bi-centenary of Cook discovering New Zealand.
This post is a small collection of this miniature sheet showing the exhibition cancels and some printing errors. There are also other covers and items related to both Tarapex '69 and Tarapex '86. While some might consider exhibition labels to be outside the field of postage stamps, it has been the policy of this blog to explore other areas of postal history as well. In saying this, we consider that labels that accompany postage stamps on a cover must be well within the scope of this blog.
You will notice that these labels did not carry any postal value. They were only used to promote the exhibition and raise funding through souvenirs. The later issue for Tarapex '86 did carry a postal value.
First, let's have a look at the star of this post, the Tarapex '69 miniature sheet of labels.
This sheet is made up of four separate labels, each promoting the Tarapex 69 Stamp Exhibition.
In the top left label, printed in blue, is a view of Captain Cook's Endeavour with Mt Taranaki in the background. Notice that the mountain is smoking because when Captain Cook discovered New Zealand the mountain, which is still considered an active volcano, was erupting.
The top right label, printed in brown, shows a portrait of Captain Cook. Captain Cook was probably the supreme navigator of all time where he made three voyages to the South Pacific, exploring, mapping and conducting scientific research. It is this colour that caused so much trouble during printing as we will see further down this post.
The third label, bottom left that is printed in green, shows a map Cook drew of New Zealand which was late revealed to be surprisingly accurate. The main mistakes being that Banks Peninsular appears as an island and Stewart Island is connected to the mainland. This same map was also used on cover issued by the exhibition as will be seen further down this post.
The final label bottom left, printed in black, has no illustration just a poster format prompting the stamp exhibition.
Exhibition Cancels on Label Miniature Sheets.
There were two cancels used on these labels. They were used on sheets, covers and other postal items purchased at the exhibition.
Left-hand:- Endeavour cancel showed a miniature version of one of the label designs, featuring Captain Cook's ship the Endeavour with Mount Taranaki in the background. This cancel was mainly used for the Tarapex '69 postal labels.
Right-hand:- The second cancel is oval design, similar to the heavy cancels used on early New Zealand postage stamps. This cancel had no mention of Captain Cook, instead just promoting the exhibition. It also appears as a postal cancellation on items purchased and sent from a post office set up the exhibition.
Left-hand:- The oval cancel placed neatly in the centre of the sheet overlapping all four labels.
Right-hand:- This sheet carries the Endeavour Cancel (stamped using green ink) at its centre with an Oval Cancel in each corner.
Both these sheets show the Endeavour cancel (using black ink).
Tarapex '69 Exhibition Covers.
1969 Tarapex '69 cinderella Captain Cook label on an exhibition reg cover with 1969 18c - Wool Industry definitive stamp. You will notice that this cover also carries two cancels as well. The first is the Cook's Endeavour cancel for the Tarapex '69 label and the second is a special cancel produced by NZ Post for this exhibition and used to cancel the postage.
This is the same map used on the labels above. Now, with the use of blue and green, greater details can be seen along with the two mistakes Cook made at Bank's Peninsular and Stewart Island. They have also taken the portrait of Capt. Cook and added to bottom right.
1969 Captain Cook Tarapex '69 Cover with 1969 Cook Miniature Sheet (overprinted for the exhibition) used as an FDC. I also notice this cover also carries the Cook's Endeavour cancel.
More on these stamps can be seen in our post - 1969 Captain Cook Bicentenary.
See our collection of Capt. Cook stamps - Captain Cook Stamps of New Zealand.
A 1969 Tarapex '69 First Day Cover, 6th Oct 1969, with 3c 1967 Pictorials Stamp. What makes this an interesting item is its a piece of wood sent through the post like a postcard. Here the Oval Cancel is used to cancel the New Zealand postage stamp.
Label Printing Errors.
Because these errors below show missing colours as they would have been printed, I suspect these examples may have come from printers waste rather than as issued errors. Either way, they make for some interesting examples of this label sheet.
Left-hand:- Captain Cook Label Min sheet with only the black printed.
Right-hand:- Captain Cook Label Min sheet with black & Green printed.
Now we add in the brown, It appears that the brown got printed at the same time these sheets were perforated. In both these examples above you can see the both the brown and perforation are printed at an angle.
Left-hand:- Now the brown is correctly printed but still the blue is missing.
Right-hand:- Finally all four colours are there but look at the mess of the brown, printed twice and both of them are wrong.
Exhibition Cover Errors.
These two Special Exhibition covers show printing errors. In both cases, the error occurs in the black.
This error is a bit confusing. The black text across the bottom has obviously been printed twice. It appears as if the first printing was too far to the right which has given us this garbled line of letters overlapping each other. This error also affected the line of type under the map too.
Now what confuses me is that the map, that also appears to have been printed in black does not suffer this same doubling error. Neither does the type at the top of the map either. My simple suggestion was that the map and this doubled type were printed as separate colours. I was happy with this solution until I saw the cover below.
In this cover, the black appears to have shifted while the green and blue appear in their correct positions. Notice in this example the error has affected both the map and the text across the bottom. It appears they have been printed at the same time.
Tarapex '86.
This sheet of six postage labels was produced to help fund the Tarapex '86 National Stamp Exhibition held in New Plymouth between 17-27 October 1986. The labels were used on pre-exhibition mailings to supporting members and sheets were sold mint and on covers for fundraising. The images on the labels were based on illustrations completed by A H Messenger.
Arthur Messenger was the son of the Captain William Messenger who commanded the military redoubt at Pukearuhe after the Taranaki Wars. He became an artist who enjoyed painting scenes of ships and other subjects of early New Zealand. The drawings on these stamps came from a series he did from his early life at Pukearuhe.
I am not going into any detail with this issue. I've just shown these images as they came up in a google search. While not appearing in most stamp catalogues I use, these stamps were used for the payment of postage by the exhibition organizers. They can be found on the NZ Post website as well.
$1.50 - Miniature sheet consisted of six labels - five at 24 cents and one at 30 cents.
The miniature sheet used on an official exhibition cover.
Used examples of all six postage labels.
The Tarapex '86 National Stamp Exhibition was held in New Plymouth between 17-27 October 1986. This cover shows three 1986 Map Frama stamps used on an exhibition cover. The three stamps add up to a value of 30c which was the current postage rate for an ordinary domestic cover at that time.
Technical information: Tarapex '86.
Date of Issue:
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3 April 1985
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Designers:
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Tarapex Organising Committee, New Plymouth
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Printers:
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Government Printing Office
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Stamp Size:
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27mm x 48.5mm
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Sheet Size:
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100 stamps per sheet
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Process:
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Lithography
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| Perforation Gauge: |
13 x 14
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Paper Type:
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Unwatermarked
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Most of the images on this page came from the website of the
The Complete Stamp Company.
New Zealand Stamp brokers.
http://www.completestamp.co.nz
