TRANSVAAL POSTCARD PUBLISHERS AND STAMP DEALERS

Used as an advice note from P.O. Box 2619 Johannesburg, the Edward VII half penny postal stationery card is addressed to East London, Cape Colony, and entered the post in Johannesburg on 16^th August, 1905. The message reads:

"Dear Sir, I have sent to-day by bookpost Cat I/II 1905. The amount of deposit is usually about 50% of the stps [stamps] you should like to have on approval. Yours truly A Sonn."

The message shows that Adolf Sonn was also a Stamp Dealer as well as running a successful Stationery Company in the core of the City of Johannesburg.

P.O. Box 2619 is given in the “United” directory (1910) as being that of A. Sonn, Stamp Dealers, Periodical and Stationery Stores Ltd. of Pritchard and Joubert Streets, Johannesburg.^1a This P.O. Box number is also found on the picture postcards published by Ad. Sonn; illustrated below are the seven known examples (reduced size). These are scarce picture postcards although not unique to Ad. Sonn. The picture on the postcard numbered 80002 was also published by M.P. Vallentine² (the Vallentine postcard is not numbered).

On the picture postcards numbered 80000 to 80008, the number is printed at the foot of the card. However, the picture postcards numbered 80009 and 80011 have the number on the left hand side.

Number 80000 Captioned: 'Market Square, Johannesburg.'. Looking North West, to the left of the picture is Market Building, which was on the opposite side of the Square from the General Post Office.

Number 80001 Captioned: 'Commissioner Street, Johannesburg.'. On the right is the 1896 Permanent Building Society building known as the Permanent Building³.

Number 80002 Captioned: 'Prichard Street, Johannesburg.'. Situated on the corner of Pritchard Street and Eloff Street is Markham Buildings, built in 1886-7 with its prominent clock tower. To the left, with the well-proportioned cupola, is the Anglo Austrian building.

Number 80003 Captioned: 'Rissik Street, Johannesburg.' The tall building on the left is Stuttaford Store⁴ and further along Rissik Street is the General Post Office with its unfinished tower minus the clock, suggesting the date of the picture as being circa early 1903⁵.

Number 80008 Captioned: 'Robinson Deep Ltd headgear, Johannesburg.'. Born in the Cape in 1840, Joseph Benjamin Robinson was a pioneer of the old river diggings, although he was not really successful with diamonds. After Barberton he was slow to move to the Witwatersrand Gold Fields. Nevertheless, in buying the farm, Langlaagte, he was soon a millionaire. He befriended President Kruger and established the Robinson South African Banking Corporation. Robinson Deep was one of the most successful gold mines on the Witwatersrand. It was bold, entrepreneurial men like Robinson that provided the expertise management that changed, primitive South African Republic / Transvaal, into an industrial powerhouse.

Number 80009 Capioned: 'City & Suburban G. M. Co. Ltd. Johannesburg.'. The City and Suburban Gold Mining Company Ltd. was one of the early mines. It was registered in 1887 in Natal and the South African Republic, to work 24 mining claims on the farms of Doornfontein and Turffontein. Its capital was £85,000 in £1 sharers.

Number 80011 Captioned: 'Post Office, Johannesburg.'.⁶

Thus far the earliest postally used picture postcard is dated 29^th March 1904 and the latest on 23^rd May 1904. All were posted from Johannesburg.

The numbering of these cards does not mean that the first number was lower than 80000, although it would be unusual to begin a numerical system with the unit of zero.

The two 1d 'reply postal stationery cards' above (reduced) show the Ad. Sonn’s Johannesburg address in the form of a purple handstamp. They are both addressed to Anton Dworaoek in Vienna and entered the post on 15^th April 1897 and 14^th July 1897. The reply half of the postal stationery card has the name of the addressee handstamped in purple.

The back of an Edwardian half-penny postal stationery card which entered the post in Johannesburg on the 10^th March, 1905, and addressed 'To the Renter of P.O. Box 1763 JOHANNESBURG'. The printed advertisement for The Humber Cycle Depot has the imprint of 'AD. SONN, 26 RISSIK ST., JOHANNESBURG.' centred at the foot, indicating that Ad. Sonn acted as printers or agents for the printing of the back of the stationery card.

References

1 Matthews, J., and Woolgar, J., (2016), The Transvaal Philatelist, Vol.51, No.1 (193), March 2016, pp.39-42.

1a “United” Transvaal Directory 1910. Comprising complete directory of Johannesburg & Pretoria as well

as all other towns in the Transvaal, [The introduction dated 10^th December, 1909].The “United” Transvaal

Directory Co., Ltd., Johannesburg, p.1138.

2 Woolgar, J., (2002), M.P. Vallentine, The Transvaal Philatelist, Vol.37, No.1 (141) February, 2002, p.iii-iv and

The Transvaal Philatelist, Vol.37, No.1 (142) May, 2002, p.v.

3 Norwich, O.I., (1986), A Johannesburg Albam, Historical Postcards, Ad. Donker (Pty) Ltd, Craighall, pp.30, 38.

4 Woolgar, J., (2014), Johannesburg, Branch Post Office - Stuttaford & Co., The Transvaal Philatelist Vol.49, No.2

(188), July, (2014), p.47.

5 Woolgar, J., (2014), Post Office Box System in the Transvaal during the Edwardian period with particular

emphasis on Johannesburg, The Transvaal Philatelist, Vol.49, No.1 March, 2014, (187), pp.20-24.

6 Woolgar, J., (2004), The Transvaal Philatelist, Vol.39, No.3 August 2004, (151) p.v., and Woolgar, J., (2014),

The Transvaal Philatelist, Vol.49, No.1 March, 2014, (187), p.25.