The Sydney Harbour Bridge on Stamps, Postal Stationery and Postmarks Postal Stationery ( and a Telegram ).

Opened in 1932 as a combined road / rail bridge, Sydney Harbour Bridge is one of the premier icons of Australia. It appears on numerous postage stamps, miniature sheets ( including sheet borders ), several items of postal stationery, a Parcel label and even a Commemorative Telegram.
Unlike many of the railway articles, this is an ongoing project, as new issues will, no doubt, continue to appear. I hope it is reasonably complete, but please let me know of anything omitted or when anything new appears.

Gutter Pairs: Many of the Australian stamps exist in gutter ( interpanneau ) pairs. I have included information on these only for the inaugural 1932 issue and later issues where the gutter is pictorial. I have only included one or two catalogue numbers ( SG ), where such detail might help to identify a stamp.

The scans in this article are immediately ABOVE the stamp, stationery or postmark descriptions. The listing has been produced in five sections:

Section 1 : Stamp Issues of Australia
Section 2 : Numerous worldwide m/s for Olympics 2000 with identical central label with the Bridge
Section 3 : Other world stamp issues
Section 4 : Postal Stationery and a Telegram
Section 5 : Postmarks relating to the Bridge.

A feature of the stamps of the Bridge is that only one of them actually shows a train - or even the tracks, and the one that does, 2004 50c, shows only a distant view of a train. So, to illustrate the railway properly, please find below a very pleasing portrait of a train leaving the Bridge, reproduced by kind permission of Maikha Ly of Australia. Please note that his photograph is copyright.

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K98 rolls off the bridge on a Hornsby bound service - 20-11-2002 - by Maikha Ly

Section 4 : Postal Stationery ( and a Telegram )

I should like to thank Keith Downing and Hans Eriksson for providing almost all of this part of the listing.

Note 1: Where an item is marked ' Postcard* ', it indicates that both the ' stamp ' and the view side of the card include the bridge.

Note 2: The Maximum Cards ( Maxicards ) listed have a ' Paid ' frank on the obverse side and a postage stamp on the reverse side, as issued by Australia Post. An illustration of a typical obverse ( frank ) side appears above. The reasons surrounding this double franking are not clear to me, but may perhaps involve postal regulations requiring adequate postage to be on the address side ? I do not know if these cards may be purchased mint, without adhesives ( i.e. stamps ) on the reverse side and, therefore, whether or not they may strictly be considered to be postal stationery.

[ . . ] 18c 1976 postcard* - S1 3.76 Aerial view with Bridge

[ . . ] 18c 1976 postcard* - S1 4.76 Bridge with opera house

[ . . ] 18c 1976 postcard* - S1 6.76 Bridge with tree framing view

[ . . ] 20c 1978 postcard* - 2-N1 Night view of Bridge with opera house

[ . . ] 20c 1978 postcard* - 2-N2 Aerial view of Bridge

[ . . ] 22c 1981 postcard* - 3-N1 Aerial view of Bridge

[ . . ] 22c 1981 postcard* - 3-N2 Night view of Sydney including Bridge

[ . . ] 22c 1981 postcard - 3-N5 three views, one including Bridge

[ . . ] 22c 1981 postcard - 3-N6 Opera House and Bridge

[ . . ] 27c 1982 Postcard - 4N3 Three views including the Bridge

[ . . ] 39c 20 Nov 1988 Club200 envelope for bi-centennial / Diabetes.

[ . . ] 60c 13 - Feb - 1989 Aerogramme - Child's drawing of Bridge

[ . . ] 'Paid' 28 - Aug - 92 maxicard - Building the Bridge

[ . . ] 'Paid' 4 Feb 1993 aerogramme - View of harbour; stamp shows aircraft's shadow over landscape

[ . . ] 'Paid' 7 - Apr - 93 envelope - Stamp shows Bridge ( at left )
[ . . ] - ditto - Later reprints with imprint under flap
[ . . ] 'Paid' 24 - Sept - 93 envelope - Olympic emblem added

[ . . ] 45c 28 -Sept -94 envelope - Sydney Zoo includes Bridge in design

[ . . ] 55c 1 -Oct -94 envelope - Moora Centenary cachet at left (stamp as 7-Apr-93)

[ . . ] 55c 28 -Dec -94 envelope - Jamboree of Far Horizons cachet at left(stamp as 7-Apr-93)

[ . . ] 55c ?-?-95 envelope - Catalina Club cachet at left(stamp as 7-Apr-93)

[ . . ] 55c ?-?-95 envelope - Sisters of St John of God cachet at left(stamp as 7-Apr-93)

[ . . ] 55c 8-Jun-95 large window envelope - stamp shows bridge.
[ . . ] - ditto - also later version with 4 conditions (1996)
[ . . ] 55c - reissued 1997 without window

[ . . ] 45c 4 - Sept - 95 envelope - Epilepsy Congress envelope; stamp shows Bridge outline

[ . . ] 'Paid' Nov 95 ' window ' envelope - Stamp shows Bridge

[ . . ] ' Paid ' 16 - Jan - 1996 : Maxicard $1 Building the Bridge

[ . . ] 'Paid' 16 - Jan - 1997 postcard : View of Bridge with train ( 90c Australia Day stamp on picture side )

[ . . ] 'Paid' 16 - Jan - 97 maxicard - 'The Balcony' picture shows Bridge

[ . . ] 'Paid' 16 - Jan - 98 maxicard - Building Bridge

[ . . ] 'Paid' 20 - Jun - 2000 maxicard - View of Bridge

[ . . ] 'Paid' 6 - May - 03 maxicard - View of art galley with Bridge in background

[ . . ] 'Paid' 2 - Mar - 04 maxicard - View of Bridge. Paid Frank on back. Scan shows attached adhesive on front.

[ . . ] ' Paid ' ? - ? - 200? Postcard : Bridge with imprinted 35c Lady Denman stamp illustration

[ . . ] 'Paid' 6 - Sept - 2004 Postcard - View of Bridge with 50c bridges IMPRINTED stamp illustration.

[ . . ] 'Paid' 1 - Jan - 2004 Postcard - View of Bridge with imprinted 45c Kangaroo & flag stamp illustration

[ . . ] ' Paid ' 21 - June - 2005 : B4 - sized envelope : Night view of bridge

1932 Commemorative Telegram.
[ . . ] Telegram
[ . . ] Its commemorative envelope

For a scan of this special telegram form (and its accompanying envelope), produced in 1932 to permit the public to send friends a souvenir message from the Bridge, please click the link below.
If you do not have Broadband, you may find that this is quite a large file to download!

Link to Sydney Harbour Bridge Telegram( opens in new tab )

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