Great Barrier Pigeongram:
VP 5 - "Marotiri Overprint"
Great Barrier Pigeon Post
1898 - 1904
VP 5 - The 'Marotiri' Overprint
Marotiri Mining Syndicate
Further up the East Coast of NZ is a group of islands called the Hen and Chickens. The largest island in this group (Hen Is.) is called Taranga. The group of smaller islands to the north of Taranga were collectively known as Marotiri or Marotere Islands as the largest of this group was individually called the same. This would now be Lady Alice Island, though the Maori name for Lady Alice is also given as Motumuka.
The island now called Coppermine Island where the mining took place is at the eastern end of the group and the smaller of the three main islands in the Chickens. In 1899 a mining syndicate began work on the island and Mr Howie was approached to provide a pigeon service. He agreed and ran some trials pre stamps, which were successful.
The suggested volume of pigeon grams indicated that the service could sustain its own stamp, and so it was decided to produce some additional copies of VP 2 and then overprint them 'MAROTIRI Pigeongram' in two lines, with 'Pigeongram' again cancelling out the words 'SPECIAL POST' and MAROTIRI cancelling out Great Barrier. This stamp is known as VP 5.
VP 5 were also printed in sheets of 12 like VP 4, different from the 24 stamp sheet printing of the original VP 2. The perfs were also different coming down from 12 1/2 to 11 1/2 - 12.
It has written by both PSNZ Vol 1 and Reg Walker that the stamps overprinted were printed specifically for overprinting as there were no VP2 left, and that only stereos 4, 5 and 6 were used and sheets of 12 were printed before being overprinted.
BUT there is absolutely no evidence provided to support this assertion. In fact the evidence does not support it at all. It was thought that these stamps were a lighter blue than VP2, but we have shown earlier in this exhibit that a lighter blue sheet was printed on whiter softer paper. It is also known that the perforations for the MAROTIRI overprint are 11 ½ - 12, exactly the same as VP2, while VP4 and VP6 being prepared at almost the same time were perforated 12 ½. It is not likely that different perforating mechanisms were set up for the different stamps.
But there’s more.
The importance of being able to identify the six stereos of VP2 now pays a dividend. The stamp below is a genuine MAROTIRI overprint, and it is stereo 2, supposedly not used for the reprinting of VP2 for the MAROTIRI overprint issue, and yet we can clearly see the distinguishing mark of stereo 2 of the dented upper frame line upper left. There is still more!
It was suggested that remaining stocks were running low but there were many of the VP2 stamps unaccounted for (over 3,000) and VP4 was also in production (It was issued the day after these!). More questions arose as the paper being used for these and VP4 was different - and yet being printed by the same company - Wilson & Horton – at roughly the same time. It doesn’t stack up.
On the next page is the only known block of 12 remaining of the total 240 stamps printed. We can see that that the stamps in the left column have a far smaller horizontal spacing between the first letters of each word – the ‘M’ and the ‘P’ – compared to stamps in the other two columns.
A known stamp (pictured above) with left hand selvedge intact has a larger spacing like the right hand column. How can this be? It can’t exist using the 12 stamp sheet theory. I have found another stamp overprinted on a stereo 3 which also has a smaller gap.
My contention is that the VP2 sheets were not reprinted. They are the original VP2 sheets of 24 of the lighter blue colour on whiter paper. They were overprinted in sheets of 24 with larger horizontal gaps in the 1st, 2nd, 5th and 6th columns and smaller gaps in the 3rd and 4th columns. With 240 stamps estimated to exist this meant that only ten sheets were overprinted.
Interestingly, the RPS certificate issued is correct in identifying this as a block, not a sheet, and identifying the offset in the overprints in the first column as being reduced.
These stamps are rare unused, and very rare used on flimsy - there are only two recorded. This is the unique block of 12, a half sheet. (R.P.S. Certificate dated 2021).
VP5 MAROTIRI Pigeongram block of 12 overprint onto existing VP2.
Beware the Counterfeit
There is a counterfeit version circulating. 'The Collection' has a copy below and I have seen another one for sale on Trade Me (NZ's eBay equivalent). It's very easy to identify because the alignment of the overprint is different. The fraudster obviously didn't comprehend the overprint was actually designed to block out certain parts of the stamp and so aligned the overprint in the wrong place leaving the GRE of 'GREAT' visible and blocking out half of 'ISLAND'. But the stamp itself is a copy and a poor one. The below image is actually a high quality scan done at the same time as the above image and you can see the lack of quality in the print job. The perforations are also cleaner and not rough like the original.
