b'45267267PC Nov.1919 - Feb.1920 (AAMC.27a) A Ross Smith FIRST AERIAL POST vignette cancelled by the oval cachet, on the picture side of a postcard picked up at Baghdad en route and addressed to F. Sammons Esq., at Corowa, N.S.W. Signed J.M.Bennett, Darwin, 12.12.19 on the address side and with a second oval cachet at centre. Only 31 items in all originated in Mesopotamia, of which very few were postcards & signed by Bennett. An exceptionally rare item. Now recorded by Frommer as #280 and illustrated at page 76.Provenance: Mike Shand . $6,0008,000268268** 1919 (AAMC.27b, Frommer 1a) Ross Smith Flight vignette with full margins and superb unmounted mint full gum. Probably the finest example in private hands. This is #C16 in the Frommer listing, illustrated at page 126. Cat. $18,000 for mounted mint.The AAMC entry states about 25 mint copies are held in museums . about 50 specimens with complete selvedge exist in private collections; of the 576 issued, 364 were attached to letters carried and cancelled on arrival in Melbourne on 26 Feb 1920, 125 were destroyed and of the 87 remaining about 20 had the selvedge removed in anticipation of being affixed to envelopes. $15,00018,000'