[AVIATION] Basil Watson “Official Souvenir / Australian Aerial Mail” picture postcard. Mount Gambier-Melbourne, 15 February, 1917.

Lithographic postcard, 90 x 140 mm; recto with winged propeller above ‘Official Souvenir Australian Aerial Mail‘ and address space, with ‘This card was carried to Melbourne by aeroplane from …‘ on left; verso with vignette portrait of the pilot (“The Aerial Postman”, Basil G. Watson) surmounting a facsimile of his signature, with advertisement for Shell Benzine printed across the bottom margin; unused, very fine.

Postcard issued for the first Official Souvenir Australian Aerial Mail, flown by Basil Watson in his home-built Sopwith-type biplane from Mount Gambier to Melbourne on 15 February 1917. Watson died a little over a month later, when his aeroplane crashed in Port Phillip Bay on 28 March 1917.