Commemoration Of The War To End All Wars

Hard to believe that 100 years ago, this war began. Sorry that I missed the actual July 28 day...had to pull these all together.

Enjoy and please share if there are any other covers with this issuance only please add them.

Newfoundland's Caribou Issue from January 2 1919. According to my records, the beautiful design was a composite of a Caribou and a Moose, with each one a location of the war.

Again--please share any covers from this issuance on this thread if you have any.

Lovely. You maybe should investigate the BNAPS Newfoundland Study Group

I am a member of that group, though to paraphrase Groucho Marx :

"I'm not sure that I want to belong to any club that will accept people like me as a member..."

Kidding aside--its a great group (BNAPS and the NSG)

Any one else have any covers from this issuance? Come on Canadian cover hoarders--dig into those boxes and share...

Here is a new addition to this lovely issuance--over 100 years ago this war ended.

#124 all be her beautiful self. note the postman notes on front in pencil...

if anybody has or knows of a cover with #121 or #123 or #125 or #126 out there for sale--let me know

Hard to believe--that Anarchists started that war (and oddly they still are around...)

Tommy....how do you expect us up here in Canada to post these type of covers when you have them all....haha
Very, very nice assortment of covers....

The Beaumont Hamel 4¢ violet is particularly poignant.

The battle there took place on the first day of the Battle of the Somme (July 1, 1916) and was the Newfoundland Regiment's first major engagement.
Ordered to perform a hopeless (& unsupported) assault, the regiment was destroyed by German machine-gun fire in less than 30 minutes before they could cross no-man's-land. Of the 780 men who attacked, the regiment could muster but 68 the next day at roll-call (80% casualty)
I hate war - I hate WWI particularly - and I hate Beaumont-Hamel even more.

Here is the beautiful memorial at Beaumont-Hamel that Newfoundland erected to the memory of those poor brave men!

Lest we forget.

Sak,

Thanks for that--partly why stamp collecting is so relevant, we remember something that otherwise would be lost to the sands of time. I did not know that about the stamp and beaumont hamel

Wert (and others):

I'm operating on the hypothesis to the contrary : namely that there are scores of covers sitting in attics and "grandpas" boxes scattered all over Canada and Newfoundland .... even today. If I were up there, i'd spend every weekend driving around the towns and cities still living on these covers.

Case in point : ALL the covers above were addressed to the US, so they naturally found their way to me being in the US. But what of all the letters sent between Newfoundlanders during this time? They surely must outnumber the ones set abroad (though at different values)?

As tommy knows, I also collect this issue and have several covers similar to those posted above; really admire the 15 cent one which I don't have. I'm also working away at a set of mint blocks having recently completed a used set of singles excluding Unitrade 124b.

Re: Beaumont Hamel; I visited the site in 2011. It is a very moving experience to stand beneath the caribou which stares across the battlefield at the former German lines. Beaumont Hamel is one of the better preserved WWI battlefields with many of the original trenches still there. Six of my extended family were killed in the Newfoundland Regiment, one killed and one wounded at Beaumont Hamel. Two were also killed at Monchy-le-Preux, commemorated on the six cent stamp - an equally senseless battle. Another was killed at Cambrai (24 cent).

While these weren't close relatives (second or third cousins a couple of times removed), I have read the regimental files on each of the victims and was appalled at the lack of compassion shown in most instances to the families at home by the Army.

A PS to tommy, as we discussed earlier, I have written back to relatives in the Trinity Bay area of Newfoundland and it sounds like the area has been combed by stamp collectors over the years. I did pick up a few stamps but nothing very spectacular. if you ever get over there, you might need to go much further north.