Abacus Auctions

The phrase “necessity is the mother of invention” was never more apt than during World War II when a British army captain captured by the Japanese and interned at a prisoner-of-war camp in Thailand sent a secret message cleverly squeezed between two layers of a postcard to his wife back home.

On September 9, 1943, Captain Phil Rogers inscribed a 133-word message in micro-writing on tissue paper, which he then secreted between the postcard layers, alerting his wife to his fate.

The rarest Don Bradman cricket cigarette and trade card in existence (lot 3627) is being auctioned through Melbourne-based Abacus Auctions at its forthcoming four-day stamps, postal history, militaria, coins and banknotes and sporting memorabilia sale from 11am Tuesday May 21, continuing each day at the same time until Friday May 24.

The card, issued in 1932 by the Friends Temperance Union, is one of only six or seven known examples worldwide.

It was indeed momentous. Australia claiming its first naval victory as HMAS Sydney destroyed the German raider SMS Emden not long after the start of World War I.

The date was November 9, 1914 and, over a two-month period, the German cruiser had wreaked havoc with Allied shipping – sinking or capturing 25 steamers, a Russian cruiser and French destroyer.

An impressive postal history collection up for auction in Melbourne inextricably links the former Australian penal colony of Norfolk Island and Pitcairn Island, home to survivors of the infamous 1789 mutiny on the British ship HMAV Bounty and their descendants.

Under the leadership of acting lieutenant Fletcher Christian, the mutineers had commandeered the ship from Captain William Bligh who, with several of his loyal crew, managed to sail the small boat they were set adrift in to Indonesia. Bligh later became an early Governor of New South Wales.

The name Gary Fenton (1946-2023) will live on in Australian broadcasting history as the driving force behind the worldwide coverage of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.

Head of sport in turn at Channels 7 and 9, his influence at both television stations was profound.

His efforts in securing Channel 9 the Australian rights to the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics and wresting coverage of the 2012 London summer games from the incumbent Channel 7 via an audacious joint bid with Foxtel are still talked about today.

After he retired, legendary left-arm Australian fast bowler Alan Davidson (1929-2021) used to amuse guests at Sydney Cricket Ground official lunches by using round bread rolls to demonstrate how to hold a cricket ball to bowl an inswinger.

In fact, it became such an obsession that staff started substituting the elongated variety to counteract him.

One of Australia’s most famous photographers and an internationally respected master of his craft, Wolfgang Georg Sievers (1913-2007) compositions were often magic personified and changed the face of industrial and architectural photography in this country forever.

So important is he to Australia’s photographic history that 65,000 of his images reside in the National Library of Australia in the national capital, Canberra – the largest single collection on record.

It’s an horrendous instrument – a Papua New Guinea head hunter’s “man catcher”, comprising a sharpened wooden shaft with bamboo noose.

Innocuous looking but deadly, it was used to capture and enslave enemy tribe members by encircling the head, the razor-like point protruding into the back of the neck inflicting fatal injury if they continued to struggle.

One of Australia’s all-time favourite cricketers Doug Walters will come under the spotlight on Friday March 3 in Melbourne when his 1968 baggy green Test cap (lot 3537) is auctioned by Abacus Auctions at 29 Hardner Road, Mount Waverley.

The four-day auction of stamps, postal history, postcards, coins, banknotes, sporting memorabilia and collectables is the company’s first for 2023, beginning at 11am Tuesday February 28 and continuing at the same time each day.