St. Vincent Stamps & Postal History

On of my collecting specialties is any and everything that is "philatelically" interesting from St. Vincent & the Grenadines (an island chain in the Windward islands portion of the Caribbean [aka: West Indies]; situated south of St. Lucia, west of Barbados and north of Grenada). "Philatelically interesting" items for me include stamps, postmarks, postal & post office history, revenue stamps & documents, fakes & forgeries and more...

This site has many pages of interesting information about St. Vincent stamps & postal history, as well as information about my other philatelic endeavors.  Please use the links on the left side to go to the other pages on this site or to my other websites.

While St. Vincent's current postage stamp issuing policies are criticized by many due to the sheer number of stamps and souvenir sheets issued each year that do not pertain to the island, if one looks past the current stamp issues (which appear to be mostly souvenir sheets), there is a wealth of interesting and very scarce material that one can collect.


From left to right by row:


  • Complete sheet of 8 forgeries of the 5 shilling values of 1880 and 1888 prior to being perforated and overprinted "FACSIMILE". The forgery is of German origin and includes the word "FALSCH" ("FAKE") in the design.
  • Single stamp of the 5 shilling forgery that is perforated and overprinted "FACSIMILE".
  • THREE PENCE Overprinted Revenue stamp from the 1880's with a fake "A10" cancel. Many years ago, when revenue stamps were not as popular, some of these stamps were given faked "A10" cancels in order to partially obliterate the word "Revenue" in order to fool some stamp collectors into either believing that it was regular postage stamp or that it was used postally (to my knowledge, any St. Vincent Revenue overprint stamp with an "A10" cancel should be considered fake unless on cover).
  • Inverted 70c overprint on 3c Fish Definitive from 1975.
  • Forged 1 shilling postage stamp (with dubious "dot" cancels). Produced by the Spiro Brothers of Hamburg in the 1870's.
  • Scarce "BEQ" cancel (used on the island of Bequia - in the Grenadines of St. Vincent); the first post office on Bequia opened in 1894.
  • "Perfin" stamp from St. Vincent. It is the only one I have ever seen, any information about this would be appreciated!
  • "3d" overprinted and diagonally bisected 6 pence REVENUE stamp from the 1880's (not seen often).


New Discoveries

This section shows some of the more interesting items that I've found or discovered in the past few years.

Unusual Half Penny Revenue Stamps


May, 2011 - This "Half Penny" overprinted and vertically bisected Revenue stamp has been a mystery of mine for about 35 years! 


What is known about it:  

1) The 6 pence stamp itself is real 

2) The  "Revenue" overprint is real.


Back in the 1880's there was NO NEED for a 1/2 penny Revenue stamp, as rates were either 1p, 3p, 6p, 1sh or higher.   There was, however, a need for 1/2p postage stamps, and there were other 1/2p locally overprinted postage stamps made at that time (while they were waiting on shipments from England).   That they would have used 6p revenue stamps instead of postage is doubtful (although in theory possible).


I have done some research, and there is NO MENTION of this particular stamp anywhere, except for a reference to a German Philatelic magazine (Deutsche Philatelisten Zeitung) from around 1883 or 1884 (and unfortunately that particular issue of the magazine was NOT available at the APS library when I was researching this).  The article supposedly refers to some fake issues like this being created.


I find it amazing that during the past 35 years that I have been collecting St. Vincent stamps & postal history that I have NOT heard or seen anything about this stamp (and really not for 130 years as I have not seen any references to this other than the German magazine from the 1880's)!   There must be someone out there that has the other half of this stamp!   If you have any further information that can substantiate whether the Half Penny overprint and the bisect perforations are real or fake, please contact me!

Summer, 2009  - The St. Vincent Postal Corporation (successor to the previous government-operated St. Vincent Postal Services) announced that it will be implementing a new "hub & spoke" system for handling the mails on the island.  As a result, about 1/2 of all village post offices are scheduled to be be closed by the end of September, 2009. 


This will be a true loss to us St. Vincent postal history collectors. I am trying to obtain some of the "last day of use" postmarks from those post offices that are scheduled to be closed: Fancy, Owia, Overland, O'Briens Valley, Byrea, Park Hill, South Rivers, New Grounds, Greggs, Lauders, Mt. Grennan, Peruvian Vale, Calder, Prospect, Enhams, Arnos Vale, Belmont, Richland Park, Sion Hill, Lodge Village, Lowmans Leeward, Campden Park, Clare Valley, Rillan Hill, Penniston, Buccament, Coulls Hill (ie: Cumberland), Rose Hall, Rose Bank, Petit Bordel, Paget Farm (Bequia Island) and Ashton (Union Island). The preceding information was provided by the St. Vincent Postal Corp.

New 30¢ provisional Skeleton Map stamp


November 4, 2008  - Another provisional stamp from the skeleton map series has surfaced (thanks again to Fareeda Kajim-Defreitas).  For many years, 10¢ & 20¢ stamps were needed for local postage use (and yes, there is a quite a demand for local postage stamps - the most recent statistics from the Universal Postal Union state that in 1999, over 1,400,000 domestic letters were posted!).   The postage rates have of course increased, and are now 30¢ for domestic St. Vincent mail (which also includes the Grenadines of St. Vincent).  This particular stamp was used (but unfortunately not postmarked) around Dec. 27, 2007 and early January 2008 (reports state that this stamp was issued around November 2007).  Most copies of this stamp were apparently used by the St. Vincent "Central Water & Sewage Authority" for use in mailing monthly statements).  This stamp also exists with the "30¢" overprint in the lower left-hand corner of the map design.

St. Vincent "Star" watermark unprinted paper


July, 2007 - While the earliest stamps of St. Vincent were produced on unwatermarked paper, starting in 1871 with Scott #13 (1 penny black), watermarked paper with a “star” was introduced.  In the Scott catalog, this is referred to as Watermark #5, while Gibbons refers to it as Watermark #2, and the Whitman Watermark reference catalog refers to it as #465.


The star watermark is also found on stamps of Antigua, Barbados, Grenada, Natal, Queensland, St. Lucia and Turks Island.


The “star” is placed on the sheet such that if properly printed on standard stamps of the time, that it would appear in the middle of the stamp.


Every now and then though, people would say that they have a watermark error or variety, such as several straight lines and parts of the word “POSTAGE” in double-lined capitals.   This comes from having the original sheets of watermarked paper cut up and  sent through the press sideways.  The full sheet has the stars surrounded in the margins by the word “POSTAGE” and parallel lines.


While varieties of the watermark are interesting to collect, I recently obtained a piece of unprinted paper showing the margin lines and several stars.

St. Vincent Provisional Stamps


June, 2007  -  At the St. Vincent Philatelic Services there are several "skeleton" stamps available of the map type.  There were designed to be overprinted with an actual value as needed for provisional uses.    Some were overprinted with 10¢ & 20¢ values for local postage uses on St. Vincent.  Remainders are to be withdrawn by the St. Vincent Postal Corporation; it is unknown when these were issued nor how many.  Few are available to collectors (since there were for actual local postage use).   The example shown here was provided to me courtesy of Fareeda Kajim.  Similar stamps were last used in the 1980's.

St. Vincent Stamp Club meeting

May 21-26, 2007 - About 20 members of the British Caribbean Philatelic Study Group descended on St. Vincent for the annual BCPSG meeting & exhibition which held on the island of St. Vincent this year.  We all had a great time and had a chance to see various village post offices and were able to obtain postmarks, visit the philatelic bureau and had a tour of the main post office.  Much new information was gathered (it's so much easier when you are "on-site"!) and several projects will start up as a result, with the help of some of the local collectors (thank you Fareeda Kajim & Ernst de Freitas!).  More details will be published as they are written up. I will write some articles for the BCPSG Journal, and hopefully also for Global Stamp News and the Stamping Around newsletter of the Mid-Cities Stamp Club (www.freewebs.com/mid-citiesstampclub).New Paragraph

New Registration Labels


April 2007 - It appears that new self-adhesive registration labels are in use in St. Vincent.  At least in Kingstown anyway.  Receiving a registered item here in the USA usually means that the postal clerks will scan the item at the counter, making it easier to track electronically than a manual ledger book as in the past.  Whether or not the US Postal Service shares the scanned information with St. Vincent I do not know.  The "VC" at the end of the code appears to stand for St. Vincent (just as I've seen DE at the end of items from Germany).   These labels have at least 2 parts (maybe 3) which would be retained by the original sender and possibly the origin post office.

The album page versus the forgery


November 13, 2006 - It is a "chicken or egg" kind of thing: which came first?   On the left is an illustration of a St. Vincent 1 penny black stamp as seen in a Scott Stamp Album page from 1938.  On the right is a scan of a 1 penny black forgery (which I obtained one day ago).   So, did the album (and catalog) manufacturers use the forgery as an illustration?  Or did the forgers use the album illustration as the basis of their forgery?  Current albums tend to use photographs of actual stamps rather than crudely drawn illustrations that were meant to represent the actual stamps.


This can get to be confusing to a collector.  If they have a forgery and look at their (older) album, it matches up exactly (just look at the design elements such as the queen's facial expression, the crooked borders, the poorly drawn corner ornaments, etc).  So they are inclined to think that they have the real stamp, when in fact it is a forgery!  This is the case not just for St. Vincent, but practically every other country & colony whose stamps are illustrated in older stamp albums.

Square postmarks


September 2006 - Starting sometime in 2005, the St. Vincent Postal Corporation issued new "square" postmarks to the various village post offices.  Nearby is a postmark from the "Fancy" post office, located in the extreme northern edge of St. Vincent.  Other new square postmarks seen by the author are from Byera, Calder, Sandy Bay, Greggs, Lowmans Hill, Rose Bank and Canouan Island on the Grenadines of St. Vincent.  Postmarks from some of the other villages from October 2005 still had the older style double and single circle postmarks.  The postmarks are actually not quite square, measuring 32 mm wide and 27.5 mm tall.  They incorporate the village name followed by "P.O." on one line, then the date and "St. Vincent & the Grenadines W.I." on the bottom two lines.  The main post office in Kingstown has been seen using a new "large" circular postmark.

1858 Stampless Cover


May 2006 - Another find at the Washington 2006 International Exhibition was this 1858 stampless cover with a "crowned circle" PAID AT ST. VINCENT cancel.

Confetti Flaw


May 2006 - I found this stamp, the 10¢ value from 1938-47 at the Washington 2006 International Philatelic Exhibition.  The stamp has, what the dealer called a "confetti" flaw; a circular portion in which there is no ink present.  It would appear that a circular piece of paper (most likely from a hole punch) managed to get temporarily stuck on either the printing cylinder or the paper.  The circle measures exactly 5mm in diameter.  It appears to be an unrecorded error.

2-color Registration Labels


July 5, 2005 - I have just received a new registration label from Kingstown, St. Vincent.   While the overall look is the same, the actual registration number is now in red (whereas it used to be in black)!   Since all of St. Vincent's 50+ post offices have the capability of sending registered mail, it is unknown at this point whether or not the village post offices will receive these new 2-color labels as well.

10c Overprint on 2c Bird Definitive Stamp


October 26, 2004 - I have just received a previously undocumented stamp with a "10¢" overprint on the 1970 2¢ Bird definitive stamp (illustrated above).   The stamp is on a postcard (along with another 50¢ stamp) mailed to Germany from Clifton, Union Island, postmarked on 11. April, 1994.    To the best of my knowledge, the postage rate for an airmail postcard to Europe was 60¢ at the time, so the correct postage was applied.


There have been several instances of regular St. Vincent postage stamps being overprinted with 10¢ and 20¢ values by the St. Vincent Revenue department for use as revenue stamps in the 1990's (and in some cases the word REVENUE is part of the overprint as well, but not in this case).

What is unusual, is that this stamp was 24 years old by the time it was used.   It is unknown at this point when and where the overprint was printed (although most likely in Kingstown sometime in the early 1990's).   It is amazing that there were enough of these old stamps still around at the time to warrant overprinting them.   It is now 10 years later, and I have not seen or heard any mention of this particular overprint variety!


Aside from whether it is a proper postage and/or revenue stamp, it is still another wonderful discovery, considering that it is most likely a revenue stamp used as postage! 


June 17, 2005 update:  This stamp and many others have been listed in the 2005 Michel Caribbean Stamp catalog.  Scott's Stamp Catalog will also be listing them in the 2005 Volume 5 of the Scott Standard Stamp Catalog to be released in the fall of 2005.

New 10c Overprint on 20c Revenue Stamp


August 27, 2004 - I received both of the stamps shown above in the mail (all in full sheets of 100).  While I have been aware of the 20¢ revenue stamp on right above (the companion to the 10¢ stamp shown below), apparently they must have run out of the regular 10¢ revenue stamp and started overprinting the 20c stamps with black block on the left and "10¢" on the right.  


According to Steve Zirinsky, this stamp was overprinted in June 2004 with a quantity of 500,000.   The overprint was most likely carried out on St. Vincent; the stamps themselves were printed by "BDT International Security Printing Ltd".   The paper is NOT watermarked and the stamps are perforated 13½ on both sides.  The gum is of PVA type.


While the stamps do not specifically state the words "revenue", that is what their intended use is, and to my knowledge are not valid for paying postage and registration fees.

New 10c Revenue Stamp


In early November, 2003 I was given the stamp shown above.   While it may look like a postage stamp, it is designed for revenue or fiscal usage.  10 cents is a common amount that has to be paid for revenue in St. Vincent.   For example, in 1983 I purchased a bottle of beer at a supermarket in St. Vincent and on the back of the receipt they put a 10¢ postage stamp.   While postage stamps could be used for revenue purposes, it appears that they have started to issue specific stamps for that task, although they are not always identified as such.  


The stamp is perforated 13 ½ on all sides and appears to be printed on unwatermarked paper.   No further details, such as issue date, are available at this time.

A new "Type D Blue" forgery discovered!


In early June, 2003 I obtained the forgery shown above at an eBay auction.


It most closely resembles the "Type D" forgeries mentioned in the "St. Vincent" book by Pierce-Messenger-Lowe; however, it appears to be even cruder in execution; additionally, this type is only mentioned in "blue-green", not blue.


Key characteristics:

  • Wrong color, no blue 1 penny stamp was ever issued
  • Not perforated
  • No watermark
  • Major design flaw in middle of left border
  • Extremely crudely drawn corner ornaments
  • Size of design (border to border): 19 mm x 22 mm
  • Queen's facial expression is wrong
  • Poor printing quality (lithographed instead of engraved)

Fakes & Forgeries

The St. Vincent "1 Penny Red" stamp is often a source of confusion for many collectors.

Using the Scott catalog as a guide, many collectors simply stop at Scott #1 or #2, as it is generally the first "1 penny red" stamp that one runs across in the catalog.

If one delves a bit further into the catalog, there are three other commonly found 1 penny red stamps to be found: Scott #5, 43 and 44 (plus the elusive #11).

Row 1 of the image above shows Scott (Stanley Gibbons) #2 (SG#1), 5 (SG#5), 43 (SG#48) and 44 (SG#48a).
Row 2 of the image above shows 3 forgeries. The 1st stamp is not attributed to any specific forger, the 2nd one is a lithographed forgery from the Spiro Brothers of Hamburg (approx. in the 1870-1880's) and the 3rd one is an engraved forgery by Panelli (approx. 1927).

November 12, 2006 addition: the left stamp on row 3 above shows the elusive Scott #11 (SG#10). The color is normally identical to #1, #2 or #5, however, the picture was taken under office lighting and not via a scan, hence the appearance here is different. The stamp shown did have a BPA certificate and permission was granted from the present owner, Crown Colony Stamps, to use the image.  The right stamp is also a Scott #11 (SG#10) but came from a Spink auction catalog image (from the May 3-14, 2008 Sovereign sale).

Note: the stamps in rows 1 and 2 are from my own collection.

Several easy ways to tell them apart:

  • #1, #2, #5 and #11 are NOT watermarked, #43 & #44 ARE watermarked
  • The design on #43 & #44 appears sharper.
  • #1 has relatively "clean-cut" perforations 14 to 16.
  • #2 has rough perforations 14 to 16, although "compound" perforations are also known.
  • #5 has clean-cut perforations 11 - 13.
  • #11 has clean-cut perforations 11 - 13 at top & bottom, and rough-cut perforations 14 - 16 on the sides.
  • Generally speaking, #1, #2, #5 & #11 will have "A10" postmarks, while #43 & #44 have postmarks identifying the town (either fully spelled out, such as "Kingstown", or less likely with single, double or triple letter village abbreviations) plus the date.

If you believe you that you have a #11, I would highly recommend getting it certified; in the last 10 years, I have already run across 2 of them...

Generally speaking, Scott #43 and 44 are often mistaken for either #1, #2 or #5. Many collectors do not have the various stamps available for comparison, so they are easily be misidentified.   Using the visual guide above should pretty much help you identify what you have.
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St. Vincent Error Stamps

     Frequently you will find various stamps from St. Vincent (as well as the "Grenadines of St. Vincent", "Bequia" and "Union Island") that are advertised as "ERRORS", especially "Imperforate" or "Inverted Overprint", "Missing Colors", "Double Overprints", "Inverted Centers" and other "varieties" of stamps issued in the mid and late 1980's.

     This includes stamp issues showing "Elvis Presley", "Michael Jackson", "Queen Elizabeth", various automobiles & trains and a host of other subjects.  Many of these issues are also inscribed "Leaders of the World".

      The printer of all of these stamps (and souvenir sheets) was "Format International Security Printers, Ltd.". When Format International Security went bankrupt, some of their assets, including unfinished stamp stocks, were sold off. Thus, the market was flooded with "imperforate", "inverted" errors, "color proofs"  and other varieties. None of these errors & varieties were officially issued by or made available to the St. Vincent postal services, nor were the errors discovered by being purchased from the St. Vincent postal services; thus the items are generally classified as "printers waste".

      It has also recently come to my attention that many of these errors were produced deliberately (and were to be sold to collectors as "rare examples") were produced as errors on purpose.  You can read the story about the whole scandal and some of the legal proceedings at this web page: http://www.tuvaluislands.com/stamps/LOW_story.htm [note: this link was not functioning for several years, but appears to be available again; I did capture this particular webpage in 2003 to an Adobe PDF file, so in the interest of educating any interested parties, here it is: Tuvalu Islands LOW Story - you will need to have a copy of the Adobe Acrobat PDF Reader installed to view this].

In my book, a true "error" is a stamp of less than perfect quality that has managed to escape regular quality control procedures and iis found & purchased through regular channels, such as from the Post Office or an authorized sales agent (but not from the Printer!). Error items that come directly from the Printer are not "true" errors, they are simply printers' waste that should have been destroyed in the printing facility. A case in point is the recent USA "Nixon" stamp that was found with various errors; as it turned out, an employee of the printer took misprinted stamps (ie: the printing waste) from the printing plant and then tried to sell them; this was in turn declared illegal, the stamps were confiscated and the employee charged with a federal crime. 

     Now, the Government of St. Vincent probably does not care too much about these items (I have written the postmaster general in St. Vincent several times in the past, as well as the manager of the St. Vincent Postal Corporation - the successor to the original St. Vincent Post Office, but have never gotten a response regarding this problem), since the chances of these stamps ever being used for actual postage in St. Vincent are fairly slim and that they are thus not defrauding the St. Vincent Postal Services.

      What is the value of these items? Probably whatever the market will bear... (I have generally paid not much more than two or three times the catalog value of the regular stamps, and in some cases much less). Yes, they may be somewhat "rare" (compared to the regular stamp issues), they're "collectible", but that does not necessarily make them extremely valuable!   If someone offers you these as an "investment", run, don't walk, away!  Ask the seller of these items, if they're such a good investment, how much would they be willing to pay to purchase some right now?!

      Recently I was told that a certain company out of Nevada is selling some of the invert errors (particularly the "40th Wedding Anniversary of Queen Elizabeth" set from 1987 as an "investment" for around $ 1,000 to $ 1,200 !  I have purchased the same stamps for only £ 7.50 (about $ 15.00) from a seller in England who told he can sell me more at that price!  Another company out of North Hollywood is (was?) also selling these errors and was actually hiring sales people to sell these error stamps to so-called "qualified investors" (meaning probably anyone gullible enough to believe them and hand over their money or credit card number based on a high-pressure sales pitch!).  Yet another company was selling these from Florida.  The November 15, 2004 issue (pages 18 & 20) of "Barron's" discussed telemarketers which are selling various error stamps (and other) "investment" items.

Please read the information (about 7 pages) at this link: http://www.tuvaluislands.com/stamps/LOW_story.htm and then make up your own mind.               As they say: Caveat emptor - "let the buyer beware".   And to illustrate that point, I created a 16-page exhibit, a copy of which I have contributed to EXPONET, an international on-line stamp exhibit website; you can see the entire exhibit here: http://www.japhila.cz/hof/0267/index0267a.htm  (click on individual pages to see them full screen).

St. Vincent Village Post Offices (main island):

  • Arnos Vale
  • Barrouallie [BAR]
  • Belmont
  • Biabou [BI]
  • Bridgetown (closed)
  • Buccament [BU] (closed)
  • Byera (Byera Hill?)
  • Calder
  • Calliaqua [CA]
  • Campden Park
  • Chateaubelair [CH]
  • Clare Valley
  • Colonarie [CO]
  • Cumberland [CUM]
  • Diamond Village
  • Edinboro (closed as of Dec. 31, 2006)
  • Enhams
  • Evesham
  • Fancy
  • Georgetown [G]
  • Gomea
  • Greggs
  • Lauders
  • Layou [L]
  • Lodge (Lodge Village)
  • Lowmans Hill
  • Lowmans Windward
  • Mt. Grennan
  • Mesopotamia [MES]
  • New Adelphi (closed)
  • New Grounds
  • O'Briens Valley
  • Orange Hill / Overland
  • Owia
  • Park Hill
  • Penniston
  • Peruvian Vale
  • Petit Bordel
  • Prospect
  • Questelles
  • Rabacca [RAB] (closed)
  • Richland Park
  • Rilland Hill (officially Rillan Hill)
  • Rose Bank
  • Rose Hall
  • Sandy Bay
  • Sion Hill
  • South Rivers
  • Spring Village
  • Stubbs (ST)
  • Troumaca
  • Union (Estate) [UE] (closed)
  • Vermont

 

                     

St. Vincent Village Post Offices on the Grenadines Islands:

  • Paget Farm, Bequia Island
  • Port Elizabeth, Bequia Island [BEQ]
  • Canouan Island
  • Mayreau Island
  • Mustique Island
  • Ashton, Union Island
  • Clifton, Union Island

 

NOTE: Many of the above post offices were closed on October 31, 2009. I will update the list above shortly.

 

NOTE: The abbreviations in [brackets] after the village name were used on postmarks by the original village post offices that were opened in 1872 (note: Kingstown used the abbreviation [K] in 1872).

 

Note about "Prune Island" (now known as Palm Island): On July 20, 1978, a set of "Turtle" stamps was issued for the Grenadines of St. Vincent. The First Day Covers for this issue had a "Prune Island" postmark.  I have been informed that this postmark was created solely for the First Day Covers by the Philatelic Services and that there has NEVER been an actual post office (even a temporary one) on Prune (Palm) Island.  Palm Island is a private resort and the nearest post office is on Union Island a couple of miles away.


NEW ISSUES

I get a fair number of e-mails asking if I can provide St. Vincent stamp issues. Please let me state that I am a COLLECTOR, not a stamp dealer, nor am I affiliated with the St. Vincent Postal Corporation or the St. Vincent Philatelic Services in any way. If you have an interest in obtaining new or fairly recent stamp issues from St. Vincent & The Grenadines, I suggest that you write to the following address for a list of stamps that are available:

Bureau Manager, St. Vincent Philatelic Services Ltd., PO Box 2348, General Post Office, Kingstown, St. Vincent, WEST INDIES


Unfortunately this site is limited in the amount of information and illustrations that I can display.

If you have any questions regarding St. Vincent stamps or philatelic items, please don't hesitate to contact me via the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of this website.


For additional information, see some of the other pages on this site (click on the links in the upper left-hand corner).

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