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The War Tax Stamps of Mozambique

By E. Tamsen

(Continued from April, 1922, Issue.)

Since writing the articles which appeared under the above heading in No. 25 of March, 1922. and No. 26 of April, 1922, of this Journal, the remainder of the 5 centavos vermilion Taxa de Guera. No. 5, third issue, has been surcharged with 2$00, thereby creating the highest value of the postage stamps used in the Province of Mozambique.

This high value became necessary owing to the raising of the Inland postage to 60 centavos, the highest value of the Ceres type being only 1 Escudo. equivalent to 100 centavos.

In Boletin Official No. 46, of November, 1921, published in Lourenco Marques, the issue of this stamp was announced and the total of stamps surcharged was given as 100,000. It was, however, only in January, 1922, that these stamps were really issued to the public. The surcharge is in green ink and neatly done, without any errors. It was printed on full sheets of 100 stamps and issued in this state and not cut into blocks of twenty-five, as all the former surcharged War Tax Stamps were.

All the plate errors which occur in the 11⁄2 cent on 5 cent (No. 11), 21⁄2 cent on 5 cent (No. 8) and 6 cent on 5 cent (No. 12) are found in this issue.

Seventh Issue-November, 1921:

This issue was made by surcharging the 5 centavos vermilion, No. 5, with 2$00 in one line with green.

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of 25 stamps. This is incorrect, the bulk were overprinted in full sheets of 100 stamps but the Post Office employees, for convenience sake, divided the full sheets into panes of 25 stamps before issuing them to the public.

Of No. 9, however, several sheets were only printed in blocks of 25, thereby creating the stamp No. 10, which really was never intended to be surcharged because it did not exist any more in full sheets. A few loose stamps which were on hand were mixed by the printer with the loose stamps of No. 3, to make up panes of 25.

Further, I would suggest that the present confusion of the "red" nomenclature in the different catalogues be simplified, namely, the 5 cent rouletted (my No. 2) be called "carmine", 5 cent perforated 11 (my No. 4) be called "dull rose", 5 cent perforated 12 (my No. 5) be called "vermilion". This gives three clear and distinct colors which any collector can distinguish at a glance and without using a color chart or a perforation gauge.

From Gibbons' catalogue one would imagine that the rouletted and perforated 5 cent were of the same shade and the surcharges printed on "red" 5 cent stamps. This should really read "vermilion" to be distinctive.

Yvert & Tellier's catalogue makes the same mistake and then calls the 11⁄2 cent on 5 cent No. 209 "cin" and the 2$00 on 5 cent No. 243 "carmine". This is very inconsistent and confusing.

Our publishers call the 5 cent rouletted No. 326 rose, the perforated one No. 328 red and also dull rose, and the surcharged ones "red", which might mean any shade of this color. By naming same "vermilion" all confusion would be avoided.

This ends the history of the War Tax and its subsequent Postage Stamps. From personal experience I can assure my readers that the specialising of these stamps, which at present are still inexpensive. is very interesting. If plating is intended, then I advise to plate in panes of 25 stamps, because the full sheet of 100 stamps is too large and unhandy.

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*1614 Jugo Slavia (Slovenia), Newspaper, 1920, 2p on 2f, 30p on 2f complete, Blue

*1631 Jugo-Slavia, Postage Due, 1920, 5p on 15f to 8d on 30f. 1622 Jugo-Slavia, General Issue, 1921, 2p to 10d complete... 1623 Persia, 1911, lc to 30k complete....

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1624 Persia, 1913-14, 5c to 4k complete..

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*1592 Portuguese India, 1914, 11⁄2r on 41⁄2r to 3r on 8t complete, Surcharged on Vasco da Gama

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*1630 Roumania, Occupation, 1917, 3b to 4L complete.. *1629 Roumania, Occupation, 1918, 3b to 4L complete.

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*1625 Saar, 1922, 3c to 3f complete...

*1604 Transvaal, 1894-95, 2p to 1S complete.

1603 Transvaal, 1900, 2p to 2S 6p, surcharged "V. R. I." 1611 Tunis, Postal Packet, 1906, 5c to 2fr....

1612 Upper Silesia, 21⁄2p to 1M second set..

*1632 Western Ukrania, 1919, 3h to 1k, surcharged on Austria.

HONDURAS

1915-16

UPU

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L

Of Topical Interest

By Kent B. Stiles

IBERIA, Western Africa's negro republic, which has been so prolific in stamp issuing, once more comes forward with postal adhesives-this time a special series commemorating the close of a century of existence.

A large sailing vessel lying off a strip of surf-battered coast, with small boats putting off toward the shore, is the central design common to all denominations, which are five in number. Liberia's national symbol, the star of hope, rides in the heavens, and the two inscriptions are Liberia Centennial and 1822 Pioneers Landing 1922.

The very inscriptions suggest history. Back in 1921 the American Colonisation Society selected Cape Mesurado, an African headland, to which to send American freed black slaves. Beginning about 1822, one Jehudi Ashmun founded this negro colony, and in 1824 the Rev. R. R. Gurley gave it the name Liberia. The stamps now issued commemorate Ashmun's action and picture the arrival of the first of the liberated slaves from across the Atlantic.

FOR

"Astral Adhesives"

as

OR use on letters transported by "flying machine" between Zurich, Geneva, and other Swiss series, Switzerland has issued a set of airpost stamps with what the London Times calls "striking impressionist designs," but which Stamp Collecting, a British contemporary, characterizes "brutal designs." On the 15 centimes red and olive and the 25c blue is shown "a postal biplane in flight," the Times says, but Stamp Collecting describes the design as an "alleged aeroplane over all-edged Alps." On the 35c brown and bistre and the 40c violet is a "close up" of an aviator's head "with the Zermatt in the background," according to the Times; this design, avers Stamp Collecting, is that of a "begoggled and leather-capped head of an airman." The 45c red and blue and the 50c gray black and red each pictures what the Times calls "an aeroplane upon a reticulated ground spangled with stars"; Stamp Collecting's version is "aeroplane

and engine-turned' background spangled with tiny white crosses."

A German stamp paper says the stamps are "objects of art." A London stamp paper declares that they are "an extremely ugly sextette," which is "too uncompromisingly Futurist.”

Whether these adhesives are striking or brutal, artistic or ugly in design, is not going to make the average philatelist's hair any grayer; if there is a real need for the stamps, as apparently there is, the series is another important contribution to airpost history, and as such is welcome.

Meanwhile Portugal has commemorated March 30, 1923, the first anniversary of the flight by Portuguese aviators to Brazil, by issuing a series with fourteen denominations, with surcharges for special use in the Azores. Here are twenty-eight obviously unnecessary bits of postal paper which the Portuguese are inflicting upon suffering collectors. Business economists are talking just now about over-expansion and the possibilities of a buyers' strike. In philately, over-expansion certainly exists, with this Portuguese set as a recent example, and only repeated buyers' strikes may be the solution!

R

Useless Commemoratives IGHT along this line, a writer in the the London Times, commenting on deluge of commemoratives and kindred unnecessary issues, concedes that "the ubiquitous postage stamp offers a convenient and practical medium for national commemoration." But, he adds

"To the philatelist the commemorative stamp presents a perennial problem. Attractive design and historical interest are apt to be outweighed by the knowledge that but for the existence of the vast army of stamp collectors such issues would in all probability never have been conceived.

"There is a growing disposition in philatelic circles to relegate commemorative stamps to a category of their own, and to treat them as supplementary to the general stamp issues of a country, which in nine cases out of ten they are.

"It is probable also that, in future, commemorative stamps will be separately listed in the philatelic catalogues, in a like manner to officials, postage dues, parcel stamps, etc., thus clearly defining their status in the eyes of collectors.

F. J. Artigas's Honor WHILE on this subject of commemo

an

ratives, Uruguay has broken out with philatelic historical smallpox once more. Down in Montevideo they unveiled equestrian statue, Feb. 28, of Fernando José Artigas. No one objects to patriotism in memory of one's country's national hero, but it is nothing to get so excited about that special stamps must be imposed upon the world's buyer-collectors. Uruguay issues three in honor of F. J. Artigas in connection with the unveiling of the statue, in denominations of 12 centesimos carmine and sepia, 5c violet and sepia, and 12c blue and sepia. The year 1923 does not seem to be in any sense a centenary of any of F. J. A.'s acts, as in 1823 this soldier-politician was either in Paraguay, whence he had fled after being defeated while dictator, or was in exile in Candelaria. But of course every mint set sold adds 19 centesimos, or nineteen one hundredths of one good peso, to Uruguay's coffers, and it is undoubtedly an excellent statue they have erected in Montevideo, and somebody's got to finance the cost of materials and labor. Why not George W. Collector?

The Specialized U. S.

INDER the headline “Odd Things Make

UNDER

Value in Stamps," the New York Times of March 25 devotes a half-column to Scott's "Specialized United States" catalogue compiled by Eugene N. Costales. After pointing out how various cancellations affect price quotations, the Times goes on to say:

"It is interesting to note that this specialized philatelic book has attracted attention in England, and Fred J. Melville, the leading authority there, says that the booklet provides a surprise to most collectors in showing that these early 1847 stamps exist in a pre-cancelled state. This unusual type is limited to Wheeling, W. Va., but in 1847 the division had not been made and the stamp bears the Virginia

postmark. It is merely listed in the book without giving a value, owing to its rarity.

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"This system of pre-cancelling stamps,' says Mr. Melville, 'is a comparatively modern innovation, Belgium being the first to adopt it in 1895. The stamps are cancelled in sheets in the printing press and are sold already cancelled to firms dispatching heavy mails. These firms affix the pre-cancelled stamps to their mail and hand it to the post office in bulk, and the post office is saved the labor of separately cancelling the stamp on each article. Precancelled stamps are now issued in most United States towns and in Canada, Belgium and Luxembourg. But these two stamps classed by Mr. Costales and he has the leading American students with him—as pre-cancelled, are curious anticipations of a plan that was not adopted until half a century later.

""There is evidence on several covers of letters posted at Wheeling, W. Va., that the stamps had been cancelled there in the sheet before being separated and affixed to the letters. Examples must be very scarce, but it will interest possessors of the first United States Stamps to look for a quarter of a red gridiron cancellation showing on one corner of the stamp, which is the token by which you may know this prehistoric pre-cancel. Apparently the stamps were afterward cancelled in the usual way in blue.'"

The U. S. Designs

WHO suggested the designs for the

U. S. series now appearing? Modestly the Alverno Sentinel, published in the interests of the Mt. Alverno Protectory for Boys, Cincinnati, calls attention to the fact that in its May, 1922, issue it published a letter which its editor had sent to the Post Office Department, urging the selection of portraits including those of Lincoln, Washington, Grant, McKinley, Roosevelt, Monroe, Jefferson, Franklin, Martha Washington, and of scenes and symbols including the. Statue of Liberty, Niagara Falls, the Capitol, an Indian and a Buffalo-all of which were later chosen. The Alverno Sentinel's suggestions of Washington on the 2 cent and Roosevelt on the 5 cent were carried out, as were its suggestions that 14 and 25 cent values be added. Brother Cassian of the Protectory, who

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