Editor : James (Jim) Taylor 
2335 Paliswood Road SW, 
Calgary, AB
james-taylor@wave.home.com

President : David Allen 
2159 W 47th Avenue,
Vancouver BC
Canada V6M 2M6
Fax : 1-604-263-3141
dallen@axionet.com

Mr David Salovey 
Founder 
P.O. Box 464
New-York, N.Y. 10014-0464
USA

Where would this whaling station be ?

Où se trouve cette usine d'huile de baleine?

As another aspect of collecting the philately of St. Pierre and Miquelon, a collection can be expanded with pictures. At the start of this century the interest in picture postcards was tremendous and collectors everywhere forged links with other collectors by exchanging picture postcards of their area with collectors from other parts of the world. One of the attractions, besides pictures from another part of the world ,was that they were franked with stamps from the country of the sender. St. Pierre and Miquelon collectors were very active and names like Leon Briand, whose collector number was CCC 2062 and Mlle.Maurice Blanche, a local school teacher were among the many who took part in these exchanges. At the same time numerous postcard series were produced by A.M.Brehier and Leon Briand. In my collection, though, is one card that has me completely mystified and it is illustrated here. It shows a whale oil extraction plant and a whale on a flensing deck, apparently on the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon. The card was issued by A.-M Brehier and is No.28 of a series issued at St. Pierre. It is postmarked at St. Pierre in 1918 and on the face of the card is a 15c + 5c Red Cross surcharge stamp. To the best of my knowledge there was no whaling station on the islands nor was there a whaling industry, but perhaps I am wrong . Can anybody clarify this mystery ?

Philatelic articles by David Allen