Great Barrier Pigeongram:
VP 1 - Special Post
The First Airmail Stamp in the World
Great Barrier Pigeon Post
1898 - 1904
VP 1 - The First Airmail Stamp in the World
In April 1898 Parkin decided to pull the pin. He had picked up some additional responsibilities and decided his time was best spent doing other things. It may be that the service wasn't paying a dividend. Miss Springall took things into her own hands and contacted a Samuel Holden Howie, at the time an 18 year old law clerk whose hobby was racing pigeons.
Long story short - he jumped at the chance and he quickly upped the ante.
In October 1898 a Mr Henry Bolitho, a keen philatelist, approached Howie about producing a stamp. Howie was supportive. In his seminal work, 'The Great Barrier Island 1898-1899 Pigeon Post Stamps' Reg Walker recounts the agreed business proposal:
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A 1/- stamp would be more popular than a 1/6 stamp
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So reduce the cost of the service to match the face value of the stamp
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Mr Bolitho subsidise Mr Howie 3d for every bird arriving with a message bearing a stamp.
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Mr Bolitho would be responsible for producing the stamps.
Based upon this basic business proposal, Bolitho started work on the fist Great Barrier Island Pigeon stamps - the first purpose designed airmail stamps in the world.
Mr Bolitho worked with the Observer Printing Works in Auckland to develop and produce the first stamps. The first stamps were available in October and the first known use was November 1898. (earlier beliefs of an October stamped flimsy have not been confirmed).
Of interest, the bird at the centre of this design is a swallow, not a pigeon!
Five stereos were created, and of these a vertical block of three were placed on a block and the other two were placed on a separate vertical block. It is not known why the other block was created or not used, but the vertical block of three stereos was used to print sheets of 18; six impressions of three per sheet, so the sheet had to be run through the machine six times. This led to different alignment of the stamps on different sheets.
Shown left are the five stereos with the top 3 being the vertical block of three used to print the actual sheets, and the bottom two which were not used.
The only order submitted was for 100 sheets, so 1800 stamps were produced, but it is estimated that only 300 stamps were used and the other 1500 sold to collectors and dealers.
As an interesting aside, when the stamps first appeared on the market in the UK their genuineness was in doubt and so the editor of the London Philatelist wrote to the NZ Postal Department who replied that the stamps had never been used for any postal purpose! Got to love the bureaucrats! However further research by the philatelists in London uncovered the story and interest in the stamps grew.
VP1 Special Post - unused
Die 1 Frameline ‘dented’ on right side
VP1 Special Post - unused
Die 2 with three breaks in bottom frameline.
VP1 Special Post - unused
Die 3 with four breaks in bottom frameline.
VP1 Special Post - used
Die 2 with three breaks in bottom frameline.
The Collection has multiple unused and the harder to find used copies. They are rare stamps with only 1800 printed (100 sheets of 18), of which only an estimated 300 copies were used on flimsy while most of the remainder were sold as collectibles to dealers and collectors in the United Kingdom and North America. There are very few surviving used copies and if you think you have one, check carefully as there was an abundant number of forgeries with cancellation created and sold within North America in the late 1890s. More on those below.
The Collection has a complete sheet unused, one of just a few remaining, and has one of the three remaining flimsies.
VP 1 - Flimsies
VP1 Flimsies are one of the rarest NZ philatelic items. There are only three of them. Below is one of these with the distinctive 1898 round cancellation in black.
The paper was a comparatively soft, off white wove unwatermarked paper in which small diamond-shaped specks caused by the wire cloth in the paper-making machine are clearly apparent when the stamp is held to the light. The gum was shiny and brownish in colour, while the line perforating machine used resulted in rough small holes gauging about 12 ½ .
The stamps were obliterated with a distinctive single-lined circle, 19mm in diameter with the wording “GREAT BARRIER PIGEON SERVICE” and ‘1898’ in the centre. It has been recorded in black and blue, although all copies seen by the exhibitor are black. There are no legitimate violet coloured cancellations.
VP1 Special Post – complete sheet
Genuine used copies of this stamp are scarce. Used on flimsy are very scarce with only three known existing copies.
Great Barrier Pigeon Post
1898 - 1904
VP 1 Counterfeits
It didn't take long for counterfeiters to realise the popularity of the Pigeon Post stamps and begin to produce counterfeit copies for sale - many with a false cancellation also as shown on next page..
But before we go further, a technical point please!
It interesting is it that the US Philatelic dictionary and the Commonwealth countries disagree on some terminology (haha like that's never happened before).
In the USA the terms forgery and counterfeit are not synonyms. They have specific definitions that are different. I like the USA approach, which is:
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Forgery = an attempt to defraud the US Postal Service of revenue by using forged stamps on letters.
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Counterfeit = An attempt to deceive collectors of stamps with an imitation.
Interesting and good food for thought, because the pigeon post copies were counterfeits by those definitions. There is an encyclopaedia of detail on the difference between the genuine article and the two known forgeries, but in simple terms:
Genuine:
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Deep blue to indigo
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Gum distinct brownish tinge
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perfs 12 1/2
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Cross bar of H in SHILLING is straight
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There is a short oblique line before the 'G" of GREAT.
Forgery 1: The Collection has six copies as shown above, all with the violet/indigo cachet.
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The cross bar of H in SHILLING too high
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'ING' of SHILLING misplaced up on left
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There is no oblique line before G of GREAT
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No stop after POST
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Perfs 12 ½
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Counterfeit cancellation in indigo.
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Note also the different papers used with the centre bottom being very buff coloured.
Forgery 2: The collection has a complete sheet of four as shown above.
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Oblique before G
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ONF bottom of E missing
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Perfs 11 1/2 and clean cut
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White wove paper smoother than original
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Can be found in sheets of four as shown above
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Often found with fake cancellation in violet