Tin Can Mail, Tongo Collection

Collection of seven different Tin Can Mail envelopes. Superb array of well over a dozen different cachets including several attractive pictorial examples. Condition overall is good but some tatty edges as you would expect from these. The Tongan Island of Niuafoíou had no deep water harbour so mail for the island was thrown overboard from ships in biscuit tins & collected by swimmers (later canoes), who took it to shore and in the other direction. During the 1930s & 40s this became quite a tourist attraction and you could have your mail covered in cachets to show it had made the journey.