Provisional Issue 1906.
[Illustration]
The next and only remaining issue we have to describe are in the
nature of Provisionals issued during a temporary shortage of halfpenny
and penny stamps. The Bathurst correspondent of _Ewen's Weekly Stamp
News_, writing April 30, 1906, communicated the following information,
which is published in the issue of that journal for May 26, 1906:--
"The surcharged penny and halfpenny postage stamps on the 3/-
and 2/6 denominations respectively were issued on the [page
54] 10th instant, and withdrawn on the 23rd April. The issue
was necessary owing to a delay in receipt of a requisition
for stamps sent to England on the 9th February, and by the
abnormal sales, from some unknown reason, of the usual penny
and halfpenny stamps during February and March.
"A very small issue was made pending the arrival of the mail
on the 24th, by which the indent above mentioned was received.
The total issue was 4500 penny and 3780 halfpenny."
The stamps overprinted to provide these emergency supplies were the
2s. 6d. purple and brown on yellow paper, which was overprinted for
the halfpenny, and the 3s. carmine and green on yellow paper for the
penny overprint.
The surcharging was effected in the Colony. In the case of the 1/2d. the
overprint consists of the word
HALF
PENNY
in two lines of block capitals, and below this are two bars formed
by ordinary printers' rules about 8 1/2mm. long cancelling the figures
denoting the original value of the stamp.
The type and rules were set up to overprint the stamps thirty at a
time (5 horizontal rows of 6 stamps); thus the complete sheet of 120
stamps had to pass four times through the press. There is a slight
variation in the distance between the bottom of the letters comprising
the word PENNY and the uppermost bar, in the third and fourth rows of
the setting. In rows 1, 2 and 5 the bar is 5mm. away from the bottom
of the type; in rows 3 and 4 it is only 4mm. distant.
The first stamp in the second row of the setting is a variety in which
the E of PENNY is broken and the word reads PFNNY. The only other
variety occurring in the setting is a slightly depressed Y of PENNY.
This occurs in the first stamp in the 5th row.
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The 3s. stamp was overprinted with the words "ONE PENNY" in one line
of small capitals. The overprint was applied to a complete pane of 60
stamps at a time, so that the entire sheet of 120 was surcharged at
two impressions instead of four, as in the 1/2d. on 2s. 6d. stamp. The
only varieties which have been recorded of this ONE PENNY overprint
are of slight defects, possibly occurring only in particular
impressions. It, however, exists with the overprint double.
The issue of these two Provisional overprints, following upon the
appearance in 1905 of the 5d., 7 1/2d. and 10d. stamps, brought a good
deal of censure from philatelists, who considered that the Colony was
descending to undignified means of increasing the revenue by the sale
of stamps to collectors. At the instance of Lord Crewe an inquiry has
lately been held into the reasons for the emission of various Colonial
postage stamps, and the report of the Governor of the Gambia is quoted
in the printed report of the Commission:--
"The Governor of the Colony states that as the supply of the
1/2d. and 1d. stamps had been exhausted before the arrival of
a new supply which had been ordered, no [regular] stamps of
these denominations were available from the 2nd to the 10th
April, letters requiring such postage being stamped 'Postage
Paid.' The surcharged stamps were on sale from the 10th to
the 24th of April, the date on which the new supply became
available. A surplus was left over, which was destroyed with
proper precautions."
The unsold balance of the Provisional 1/2d. stamps on hand was destroyed
"under direction from the Secretary of State and by a special Board
appointed by His Excellency the Acting Governor" on October 16, 1906.
How small the "unsold balance" was is not stated.
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