Perim Island
The Earliest Picture Postcards of Perim
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Why what is very probably the earliest picture postcard of Perim on sale on the island should be a French initiative is not known. There were two printings of this card, the second one being relatively common compared to some other postcards of Perim.
The first printing is very scarce; both are monochrome lithographs but the colour of the first printing is noticeably darker than in the second. But the major difference between the two is that the back of a card from the first printing is blank, whilst that of a card from the second printing has a border and the words ‘Carte Postale’.
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From a Postal History point of view the card of the first printing is very interesting, as is the employment of the sender who appears to have been asked by a friend to write and send a card to Milan on his behalf. The sender was an Italian, Signor Lifonti, who was working in the cable office on Perim. He gives his address as ‘English Telegraph (Office)’. One can assume that he was the telegraphist responsible for the cable link from Perim to Massaua in Eritrea, at the time an Italian colony.
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All mails from Perim had to go via Aden and through the post office there. In 1899 the Rural Messenger was briefly reintroduced but had to be stopped in March 1900 due to a cholera epidemic in Aden.
Until a new contract for mails to be sent to Aden by sea could be arranged, the Perim Coal Company agreed to collect and deliver mails to and from Aden to Perim. This card was sent whilst what in the end was a three-month interim arrangement; written on 17th May it passed through the Aden post office on 21st May and arrived in Milan on 6th June. The steamer carrying the mail probably took it to Brindisi, from where it would have gone by train to Milan.
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One further piece of the jigsaw. Although this card was almost certainly Perim’s first picture postcard, it was a copy of a photograph which was used in a later set of undivided back view cards of Perim.