he 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penny and halfpenny postage stamps on the 3/- and 2/6 denominations respectively were issued on the 10th instant, and withdrawn on the 23rd April.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 ½d. 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 8½mm. 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.