Letters sent by hot-air balloon, first-flight covers up for auction

An auction of stamps and postal history taking place in Dublin tomorrow includes items sent by hot-air balloon during the 1870 siege of Paris and a large collection of first-flight covers.

Three letters in the Whyte's auction were sent "par ballon monte" - by hot-air balloon - to the Republic during the 1870 siege of Paris. Lot 335, stamped Paris to Rathgar, Dublin, Empire Francaise 20c, October 21st, 1870, is estimated between £700 (€890) and £900. Another Empire issue, dated November 5th, 1870, Paris to Dublin, franked 10c and 20c is estimated at £800 to £1,000, while a printed miniature newspaper with a letter to Mrs Hanly at Bachelor's Walk, Dublin, imprinted par ballon monte is estimated at £300 to £400.

Mr Peter Geoffroy, a director of Whyte's, explains that during the siege Paris was literally cut off. "They kept up postal communications via enterprising people who organised an almost daily hot-air balloon. They usually travelled to London and most avoided being shot down. They printed a weekly or monthly newsletter on what was going on. There was space on the newsletter to write your own little message. "It needed to be light so they were always written on fairly flimsy paper and small lettering was used to save weight. Obviously there were several hundred of these sent during the period. But not many of them were sent to places other than London.

"Letters to Ireland are not terribly common from the siege of Paris and these are three different ones. They would have been taken to London and then put into the normal post." The auction also includes a whole collection of first-flight covers. "Every time an aeroplane flew for the first time from A to B or a service started, collectors organised their envelopes to be carried on them in order to get the appropriate postal markings." Lots 338 to 441 mostly comprise one man's collection of first-flight covers.

"They go back to the pioneer days of flying - to as early as 1911." For instance, lot 338 is the first UK aerial postcard, one of three from 1911 in the collection. Addressed to a Mrs Barrington in Dundrum, Dublin, it is estimated at £180. "It was a novelty for aeroplanes to be in the air at all and these cards were carried by them."

The first-flight covers' collection includes lot 341, a rare 1914 airmail card with an imprinted German Empire stamp sent to Belfast estimated between £120 and £150. Lot 348 is a 1923 Bray, Co Wicklow to Warsaw, Poland, card sent via London and Berlin, estimated at £80 to £100. Lot 349 is described as an attractive and interesting 1924-25 range of airmail covers to Alexandria and Baghdad, estimated at £80 to £100. Lot 353 is an extremely rare Irish Free State acceptance on a 1924 flight, a registered cover Portlaoise to Sutton Coldfield, franked 10d via Belfast-Liverpool, estimated at £150 to £200. The auction also includes a selection of Irish acceptances on the Graff Zeppelin airship during its inaugural flight to South America in 1932.

Lot 420, another fascinating one, marks the first direct flight from New York to the Republic in 1934. "Pond and Sabelli went across the Atlantic but ditched when they got to Ireland. . . They were attempting to go from New York to Rome but they crash-landed at Lahinch." Signed by Pond and Sabelli, it is estimated at £300 to £400. Some collectors go for so-called disaster mail. Lot 440 will interest them. In 1954 an aircraft was about to take off from Shannon but crashed seconds after take-off in the mudflats of the Shannon estuary. Some 20 bags of mail were rescued. One such piece stamped and salvaged from the crash is estimated at £100 to £120.

jmarms@irish-times.ie