[GALLIPOLI] An improvised On Active Service postcard handwritten on a souvenired Ottoman Turkish soap packet, sent home from Gallipoli by a New Zealand infantryman in June 1915.

A$1,500 · Offered by Douglas Stewart Fine Books

Section of cardboard cut from a Turkish soap packet, approx. 90 x 140 mm (slightly irregular), the verso with handwritten message in violet pencil headed Post Card / On Active Service / June 5th , addressed to the sender s aunt, Mrs S. S. Clarke in Ponsonby, Auckland, New Zealand, with INFANTRY BRIGADE/FIELD/10JU15/POST OFFICE/NZ DIVISION circular date stamp and Passed by Censor 2634 cachet in rose; the writer informs his aunt that he is quite well , that he has received her letters and parcel, and that We are still in the firing line and getting on well have not found out about Robert (?) ; the message is signed Arthur ; intriguingly, written in the same hand in the top left corner are the initials LHR (Light Horse Regiment) what connection the sender, or the postcard itself, had with the Australian Light Horse is not clear; the card has been very well preserved and is in near fine condition. A highly evocative and virtually unique piece of Anzac ephemera. While the use of improvised postcards by Anzac soldiers on Gallipoli is well attested the earliest recorded example is dated 29 May and the latest, 3 August 1915 it is estimated that only 25 made and sent by New Zealanders have survived. Even more significant, however, is the fact that the present example is one of only two known instances of a postcard being created from Turkish packaging captured on Gallipoli. (Note: the other such example, previously in the esteemed postal history collections of Gordon Darge and Gary Di

• Binding: Hardcover

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.