F is for Fiscal cancels
The nightmare for the newcomer to a collecting area when he finds out that this lovely high value stamp he just forked out £300+ for turns out to have a fiscal cancel making it worth perhaps £30.... British Central Africa and Nyasaland abound with these. Court cancels for fines, Consulate cancels, Hut tax cancels and fiscal use for gun licences and so on.
The picture below shows some of the typical cancels found on high values where probably 99% were fiscally cancelled. Even those with a postal cancel were probably used for fiscal purposes (no fiscal canceller available) but of course can never be proved.
F is for Flyspeckng for Plate Flaws. Two plate flaws can be found on the early Seated Britannia issues of Barbados. The "Patch on Sail" flaw occurs on the fourth stamp of the botom row while the "Gash in Throat" flaw occurs on the ninth stamp of the bottom row. These flaws are not listed in the catalogs but they are worth looking for as they are sought after by Barbados collectors.
Mauritius and Trinidad also used the Seated Britannia design, but the flaws do not appear in the stamps of those countries.
Below are positional multiples which show the flaws. I have placed enlargements of each flaw in the stamp margin below the affected stamp.
F is for Faroe Islands.
FAROE ISLANDS PROVISIONAL 12 January to 31 January 1919
The Faroe Islands were in the Danish postal area and new rates were announced on 16th November 1918, but as a consequence of an irregular shipping service to and from the Faroe Islands after the end of World War I, the information only reached Thorshavn on 9th December 1918.
It was expected that new stamps would arrive by the next ship on 19th December 1918, but as this did not happen, the postmaster foresaw a shortage of stamps, especially of the 2 øre. The General Directorate was requested by telegram to send more stamps as soon as possible, but, no reply was received.
New stamps were sent to post offices all over Denmark on 28th December 1918, but it was not possible to send to the Faroe Islands as the next ship would only leave Copenhagen on 18th January 1919. The parcel with stamps was later sent via Hull in England, but it did not arrive until mid February.
On 31st December 1918 they had not received a reply to their telegram of the 19th, so another telegram was sent requesting instructions on how to use the rather small stocks of stamps. They were told that stamps were only to be sold singly, using up the 2 øre, then 1 øre, and when these had been sold out, they were allowed to cut the 4 øre stamps in half and use them as 2 øre stamps. The telegram read word-for-word: "cut four in two half", because the correspondence had to go via England, which had not yet lifted the telegraph censorship and demanded English text.
On 1st January 1919, the postmaster counted the stock of 1, 2, 3 and 4 øre stamps to be 6, 1, 1, and 11 sheets respectively. The result was telegraphed to Copenhagen and at the same time permission was requested to postpone the date that the new rates would come into force. The reply of 4th January 1919 from the General Directorate told the post office to also cut off the embossed 4 øre stamps from the remainder of sleeves for printed matter and divide these into halves.
On the 3rd January 1919, they ran out of 2 øre stamps and these were now replaced by halved 4 øre stamps. Individual stamps were cut diagonally by a pair of scissors. This resulted in 12½ sheets of 4 øre stamps making 2,500 "2 øre" stamps.
On the 6th of January 1919 they started with the surplus stock of 1,850 sleeves for printed matter. The embossed 4 øre stamps were cut off and then divided in halves in the same way as the postage stamps. This resulted in 3,700 "2 øre" stamps, which were used up by the 10th. The post office informed the General Directorate of Posts by telegram the same day and received a reply the next day to: "Surcharge cypher 2 øre on necessary number of 5 øre stamps" because there were plenty of these.
On 13th January 1919 a carpenter mounted fonts on a wooden block made from a piece of an old chair leg. For this reason the stamp has been known as the "Chair Leg Stamp" ever since. With this primitive stamp the post office personnel produced 15,500 "2 øre" provisionals. Of these, about 14,500 were used. The provisionals were hand stamped singly with the ordinary ink at hand. One sheet at a time was printed using a ruler to carefully align the overprint.
A ship departed for Thorshavn on Saturday the 18th of January 1919, with the ordered stamps as well a supply of stamps with the new denominations which arrived in Thorshavn five days later.
Long but facinating story.
Cover w. bisected 4 øre stamp. (Ebay)
Cover w. bisected postal wrapper stamp (from my Danish wrapper exhibit)
Cover with surcharged 2 on 5 øre stamp. (Delcampe)
F is for Finland
This cover postmarked March 1956 from Helsinki to Los Angeles, California, is franked with stamps to the value of 49 markka. Addressed to Hermann Grob, who was the Swiss Consul there. He was appointed Swiss Consul to Kenya, Uganda and the Seychelles in 1960.
The sender is a trade representative for West Germany.
We also have the Alexandrie CDS showing the June 29 date.
Finally, there is a closeup of the boxed RP (?) mark.
I cannot explain this one. Maybe someone else can contribute an answer?
jimbo
