Venda Banana Industry
Venda, Vuwani · 1980-08-13
Official first day cover (FDC) · South African philately
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This cover is postmarked on 13-08-1980 in Vuwani. It documents Venda's banana industry across four stamps illustrated by A H Barrett, tracing the crop from young banana plants through hand cutting, sorting and packing. Bananas were a significant agricultural product for the Venda homeland, and the cover's four stage sequence mirrors the kind of production process documentation SAPO and homeland postal administrations used across several industries in this period.
Description of the Cachet
The cachet shows two workers harvesting bananas from a tall, broad leafed banana plant, one balancing a large blue wrapped bunch on his shoulder while the other steadies the stem, rendered in a detailed painterly style with rich greens throughout. A small black Venda emblem with an elephant motif sits in the bottom left corner. The four stamps, illustrated by A H Barrett, document the stages of banana production from young plants through to cutting, sorting and packing, each captioned with its stage of the process. The Vuwani postmark features a bunch of bananas alongside the date. This cover documents an agricultural industry specific to the Venda homeland, following the same process-documentation format seen in other regional agricultural stamp series of the period.
Information Card
Info card cannot be accessed as the envelope is gummed shut.
Theme: Flora
Condition: FineGood condition. Minor wear or small imperfections, but overall well-presented.
Addressed: No
Signed: No
Stamp denomination: R0.5 (ZAR)
SAPO serial number: 1.4
Estimated value: ~US$0.1
This is a high-level, subjective estimate only, not a professional appraisal.
This first day cover (FDC) is part of Southern Covers, a private collection of 248 first day covers documenting the postal history and philately of South Africa and the homeland states. New to first day cover collecting? Read the guide to learn about cachets, postmarks, and stamp collecting terms, or browse the whole collection of Southern African FDCs.
