February 1883.
- “2½ Pence,” in black, on 1d., rosy-lake.
Although a surcharged, this is by no means a provisional stamp, since it was made to obviate the necessity of making a plate for the new value of Two Pence Halfpenny required for the Postal Union rate, and, with a change of colour of the One Penny value on which the surcharge is printed, it has remained current ever since its issue in February, 1883.
It was chronicled in the Philatelic Record of March, 1883, and is dated February in the last edition of M. Moens’ Catalogue. The surcharge is printed in black, in block figures and capitals 3 mm. in height, and the extreme length of the whole surcharge is 16 mm. A bar, 1 mm. in width, and 14 mm. in length, is printed at a distance of 1 mm. below the “2½ Pence,” and the surcharges are so printed on the sheet that these black bars fall more or less exactly on the lower labels of the stamps, and obliterate the original values. Like the stamps of the last issue, the sheets were perforated 14 by the comb-machine.
We have been shewn some specimens of the One Penny rosy-lake, which their owners fondly imagined were stamps that had escaped the surcharge “2½ Pence.” This is not so, as the One Penny stamp was afterwards issued in exactly the same colour as the surcharged variety we are now considering: vide Issue 25.
Issue 21.
October 1883.
- 4d., dull blue.
- 6d., bright green.
- 1s., orange-vermilion.
In the Philatelic Record of November, 1883, the editor chronicles the two higher values of this issue, on the authority of Dr. Viner, but they were not noticed in the Timbre-Poste until January, 1884. We have every belief that the Four Pence, dull blue, was issued with the two other values, but we can find no contemporary record of it. It is called “bleu terne” and dated 1883 in the First Supplement (published July 1884), to the 6th Edition of M. Moens’ Catalogue. This settles the question as to its colour at least, for although M. Moens’ in the current edition of his Catalogue has dropped the term “bleu terne,” and substituted for it two colours, “outremer” and “bleu foncé,” we cannot help thinking that in this instance he has followed the lead of the London Society’s West Indian Catalogue, which employs precisely these terms in describing the colour of the blue Four Pence perforated 12, ignoring the dull blue stamp altogether. The stamps so described in the London Society’s list certainly belong to a later printing, and we believe them to have been non-existent in July, 1884, when M. Moens issued the First Supplement to the 6th Edition of his Catalogue. The colour of the Four Pence of this issue is a dull dirty blue, inclined to grey-blue, and cannot possibly be mistaken for any of the shades of the Four Pence of the next issue. It is a very rare stamp, particularly unused. All the stamps of this issue are perforated 12 by the guillotine-machine described in our note to Section II.