In some ways the most ephemeral materials were the Caronia postal covers. This seems to be reflected in the prices that collectors will pay. A postal cover for a Caronia 1958 World Cruise visit to Tristan da Cunha was offered at auction with a guide price of £200.
Two covers for a visit to Haifa in 1954 during the Autumn Mediterranean Cruise. The franking date on both of these covers is 22 October 1954.
[Left:]
This cover, with a British 1½d stamp, rather than a Nordic one, was posted on a North Cape cruise
at Aandalsnes on 11 July 1952, then franked locally the next day.
This was posted from the Caronia in the early hours of 09 July 1963 at Latitude N 71° 10' 2” - the World's most northerly mail posting point.
[Left:]
Another 12 July cover, from Hammerfest on the 1965 North Cape Cruise. Not to be out-done, the
cancellation proclaims a Latitude N 70° 39' 48.”
The stamp on the above cover is a 5 cents USA Postage celebrating the 750th anniversary of Magna Carta.
Covering letter on Caronia headed paper
I've provided links to this trio of covers to fully show their pictorial value. The cover on the right illustrates the paper and envelope supplied in the Caronia's writing room. Note that neither are of Airmail weight paper.
The Official Commemorative Envelope for the 300th Van Riebeck Festival depicts a range of stamps available during Caronia's visit. Note that the currency of the stamps is in shillings and pence, £ Sterling.
I've only included the Special Pretoria cover because of the animal prints. The day that this was posted Caronia was in Liverpool being overhauled.
On the right is a cover from Guadalcanal, British Solomon Islands, 11 March 1954. Note that they are still using George VI stamps…
The stamps seen on this Caronia headed notepaper were issued for the wedding of Prince Akihito and Princess Michiko in Tokyo, which co-incided with Caronia's visit to Yokohama in 1959. If anyone can tell us what the postmarks say, and also interpret the number sequence of 34.04.12 do please get in touch…
[Image: Courtesy of Ron Burn]
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Page last updated on Thu, 27 Mar 2025
