[AVIATION] Basil Watson “Official Souvenir / Australian Aerial Mail” picture postcard. Mount Gambier-Melbourne, 15 February, 1917.

A$150 · Offered by Douglas Stewart Fine Books

Lithographic postcard, 90 x 140 mm; recto with winged propeller above Official Souvenir Australian Aerial Mail and address space, with This card was carried to Melbourne by aeroplane from on left; verso with vignette portrait of the pilot ( The Aerial Postman , Basil G. Watson) surmounting a facsimile of his signature, with advertisement for Shell Benzine printed across the bottom margin; unused, very fine. Postcard issued for the first Official Souvenir Australian Aerial Mail, flown by Basil Watson in his home-built Sopwith-type biplane from Mount Gambier to Melbourne on 15 February 1917. Watson died a little over a month later, when his aeroplane crashed in Port Phillip Bay on 28 March 1917.

• Binding: Hardcover

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