It is not nearly such a scarce stamp as the provisional Four Pence, or the One Penny of Issue 13; but it is rarer than the Halfpenny of Issue 15, except when this last is in the used state.
A number of the provisional One Penny of this issue came over unused to English dealers after the stamp had been withdrawn from use, just as in the case of the provisional Halfpenny. Used specimens were at first very scarce, but to remedy this deficiency a certain number of these unused stamps were reshipped to an agent in St. Vincent, and came back through the post in instalments during the course of 1883 and 1884, whenever their owner had a demand for used specimens. This explains the late dates seen on some of these stamps. At the present time there is nothing to choose in point of rarity between used and unused specimens.
There are a good many foreign-made forgeries of this surcharged One Penny, but all we have seen have been very poor attempts, and none of them have ever been made on the right stamp, the one usually selected for forging being the pale yellow-green Six Pence of Issue 11.
We think this is the proper place to note a curious stamp that has just reached our publishers from the United States. It is the left half of a bright yellow-green Six Pence of Issue 14, which stamp has been divided in half by a vertical line of perforation gauging 12. This half stamp is surcharged “D/1” in red, and is postmarked, apparently over the surcharge. The extreme height of the surcharge is 8½ mm.; the height of the figure “1” is 5 mm., and its width ¾ mm.; the height of the letter “D” is 2¾ mm., and its width 2¼ mm. The figure “1” has a long serif, slanting downwards, and a foot like that of a Roman figure “I.”
We do not like to hazard an opinion as to what this stamp may be, but we think it right to place its existence on record, as the perforation which has divided the stamp has been, in our opinion, done by the same official machine that performed the same operation, not only on the postal provisionals of 1880 and 1881, but also on the fiscals that were made in 1882 by dividing diagonally this same Six Pence of Issue 14, and surcharging each half “3d. Revenue.” It was expressly forbidden in St. Vincent to make use of postage stamps for fiscal purposes, unless they had been overprinted “Revenue”; this stamp, if genuine, cannot therefore have been intended for anything but postage. It may have been experimentally prepared in December 1881, when a provisional One Penny was required, and rejected in favour of the one actually issued; but farther than this we cannot go. We are sorry that this interesting stranger has reached us too late for illustration.
Issue 18.
December 1881.
- ½d., orange-yellow, shades from pale to deep.
- 1d., drab, slight shades.
- 4d., bright ultramarine.
The consignment of these three stamps, which was sent out on November 16th, 1881, consisted of 1000 sheets (60,000 stamps) of the Halfpenny, 1000 sheets (60,000 stamps) of the One Penny, and 500 sheets (15,000 stamps) of the Four Pence. All three values were issued in December, and the three provisionals which had temporarily supplied their places were at once withdrawn from use, if indeed this had not already taken place in the case of the provisional Halfpenny.
The plate for the Halfpenny value, like those of the One Penny and Six Pence, consisted of 60 stamps arranged in 6 horizontal rows of 10. Like the other current values, it was printed on the star-watermarked paper.