It was described as “1919 regd cvr. to Switz., 1d Red X (SG90) + 5d Sp. Delivery (S2). Address part erased.” Regretably the illustration was too small to reproduce well. (Figure 1 above)

The 1d Red Cross stamp had been issued on 18 May 1917, while the 5d stamp overprinted to designate Special Delivery had appeared on 2 July 1917 (as recorded by Stanley Gibbons in their “Commonwealth & British Empire” stamp catalogue) or was it the previous day as suggested by Harold Gisburn in “Postage Stamps & Postal History of the Bahamas”. The cover bears three Nassau cancellations of 22 January 1919, two neatly tying the stamps to the cover while the third is struck on the blue registration cross. They appear to be type N5a as described in M.H. Ludington & Gale J. Raymond’s “The Bahama Islands A History and Catalogue of the handstamps and cancellations 1802 – 1967″. This state of the canceller was in use from 1903 to 1925. The other marking which appears on the cover, is an R in an oval. This appears to be type R 02. Each of the postal markings is in black. Presumably, as recorded by Ludington and Raymond, the registration marking is also in black. They record its being in use from March 1894 through to 8 January 1926.

The postage rate from Bahamas to Switzerland was 2¢d. per 1/2 oz. and the registration charge was 2d, thus accounting for only part of the 6d in face value of the two stamps. Did Mr. Blatter put the stamps on the envelope before posting it to Nassau, or did he ask the Post Office in Nassau to affix stamps to the envelope to the value of his possible coupons? I suggest that he had sent the already stamped envelope.

It is to be noted that there was no “War Tax” charged on letters for delivery outside the British Empire, though there was a charge for parcel post packets for delivery in the United States. War Tax applied in January 1919, the date of the envelope.

The Red Cross stamp (Figure 2 above) has an interesting background. As Harold Gisburn noted, in 1916 as a contribution towards the funds of the Bahamas branch of the British Red Cross Society, it was proposed that a special stamp be issued. There was a compromise, and it was agreed to overprint the current 1d. ‘Staircase’ stamp with a Geneva Cross and the date “1.1.17”, that being the date on which it was proposed to have the stamps available, being in the midst of the tourist season. Receipt of the overprinted stamps did not occur until May 1917, after the tourist season, usually from mid November to mid March, had closed for the year.

The colonial legislature, the House of Assembly, approved the apportionment of the proceeds of the sale of the overprinted stamps. Th e resolution was read and agreed on 9 July 1917 whereby a clause was inserted in the Appropriation Bill authorising the payment to the British Red Cross Society of half of the proceeds of the sale of the special issue of one penny Queen’s Staircase stamps. The stamps were sold at face value.

240,000 stamps, 4,000 sheets, were printed by Thomas De La Rue & Company Limited on Crown C.A. paper and overprinted using Frame and Vignette Plates 2, the respective plate numbers, black superimposed on red, appearing in the south west margin of the sheets. The vignette was printed in a grey-black, while the frame varied from carmine to carmine-pink. The overprint was applied by typography in red. On the fortysecond stamp of each sheet there is the constant variety “Long stroke to ‘7’ ” of ‘17’. There is also a prominent scratch crossing the vignette diagonally from northwest to southeast on stamp No. 13. An endeavour was made to remove this scratch by retouching the plate. In addition, there is a minor frame variety in the shape of a red dot appearing above the right limb of ‘Y’ of ‘PENNY’ on some sheets, occasionally touching the top of the ‘limb’.

The Colonial Office was later to point out that the overprint constituted an improper use of the
Geneva Emblem, and “without proper authority under the Geneva Convention Act of 1911, the red cross Emblem cannot be employed for overprinting stamps. The concession under which certain cases where this imprinting has already occurred were subsequently authorised should not be regarded as a precedent should future proposals be put forward”.

The Special Delivery overprinted 5d stamp (Figure 3 above) was also overprinted by typography by de la Rue on Multiple C.A. watermark paper. The printers had a stock of the 5d ‘Staircase’ in reserve, in the original colours of black and orange, but on the new paper. Thus the only appearance of the 5d black and orange ‘Staircase’ on the Multiple CA watermark paper was with the “Special Delivery” overprint.

Editors note: In earlier Blatter articles, the conclusion was reached that Herr Blatter was a Swiss
post office employee who was interested in overprinted “occupation” stamps. It seems from this example that he may have been interested in overprints generally.

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Matraire of Turin also produced a distinctive 15c. stamp, the first designed specifically for the new kingdom, hence the inscription FRANCO BOLLO ITALIANO (Italian Postage Stamp).

The stamp was lithographed pending receipt of a supply of stamps printed by De La Rue. Two versions of the stamp exist. The first ‘C’ in the bottom inscription is almost closed, while in the second the ‘C’ is open and the line below ‘Q’ of QUINDICI is broken.

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The question that these items gave rise to was about the status of these so-called proofs.

The two sets of proofs were offered as lots 1614 and 1615. The photos, one set is shown in Figure 1, appeared virtually identical. Both lots were described as:

“PAPUA NEW GUINEA (sic) 1901 1sh Lakatoi, proof of the frame, vignette and finished design, all in indigo, v.f. and rare Cat. #7P minimum bid US$1,450.00”.

The Catalog number 7 is probably a Scott number. The corresponding Gibbons number (Reference 2) would be the same.

On consulting Hamilton Croaker’s work on the Lakatois (reference 1), I found that there was no reference to them. Given his extensive research and collection, it seems difficult to believe that he was unaware of the exist ence of these items – especially when there appear to be at least two of each.

Does any reader have some comments about the status or authenticity of the items? Is it possible that they were a forger’s “proofs”?

Reference:

1. Croaker, Hamilton “Lakatoi I, British New Guinea and De La Rue” (Philatelic Society of NSW, Sydney 1979)

2. Gibbons, Stanley “Commonwealth & British Empire Stamps 1840 – 1952” (Stanley Gibbons, London 2002)

This article was originally published in The Journal of the Philatelic Society of NSW (February 2004) and is republished here by kind permission of the author.

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