Are Tonga's Philatelic Floodgates About To Open?

I was very pleased to discover that Tonga was about to start issuing stamps again after a break of several years (see blog of 3 February 2012) but I am now less happy to discover that the firm which has masterminded this relaunch is Philatelic Incorporated which has produced huge numbers of stamps for The Cook Islands and its subsidiary philatelic entities (Aitutaki, Penrhyn and, now, Rarotonga) over the last couple of years. Not only have a large number been issued but many of them have had very high face values. The latest exploits by this agency on behalf of The Cook Islands postal service include the issuing of 8 stamps and 2 miniature sheets to commemorate the 22nd World Scout Jamboree in ..... Sweden (so not very close to The Cook Islands then) and this has presented the opportunity to use up old unsold stock by overprinting a set of 4 stamps and a miniature sheet issued a couple of years ago in two versions - a gold overprint and a silver overprint (why?). The total face value of that little lot was $20 and all produced at minimal cost by Philatelic Incorporated. Then in January, 2 stamps were issued in sheetlets of four (in that form enticing collectors to buy 2 sets instead of one) by The Cook Islands to commemorate the beatification of Pope John Paul II (a generous tribute since only 16.8% of the country's population is Catholic or perhaps it's just that papal issues are usually big sellers). Oh, and by the way, stamps of a similar nature were also issued for Penrhyn and Aitutaki making 6 different stamps in all or you could buy 12 if you bought the sheetlets. Remarkable restraint was shown by them not issuing a set for Rarotonga, or maybe that is to follow. The stamps show portraits of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI and appear to be by the stamp artist Derek Miller whose portraits of the popes are much better than the ones he produced last year of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to commemorate their wedding.

Gold & silver overprints on the same stamp.

So, does the same stamp issuing fate await Tonga and will the new issue floodgates open up from the country? Signs are not good. The agency took over in November 2011 and seemed to think that an emergency Christmas issue was necessary with two stamps being produced for Tonga and two more for Niuafo'ou although they were not issued until 24 December which was not very practical for the Tongan public to be able to use them on their Christmas mail. In January the agency rushed out a new definitive set for Tonga depicting native birds, 12 stamps in all with values up to $10 although if previous form with The Cook Islands is anything to go by, much higher face values will follow and the whole lot will be overprinted, perhaps in gold and silver(!), for use on official mail, which means for use on mail from the Tonga Philatelic Bureau. Niuafo'ou, meanwhile, has had 6 stamps and 2 miniature sheets produced for it which depict whales. All the designs are simple photographs manipulated with a computer to add the country name and value so we can be sure that not a lot of money was spent at the design stage. It is interesting to note that although the agency now represents the post offices of two countries it is now producing stamps for six philatelic entities. Let us hope they do not take over the issues of Tuvalu or else we may find stamps being issued for all their individual islands as notoriously happened in the 1980's. I am now giving up collecting the new issues of Cook Islands and its appendices unless the issue is strictly directly relevant to the territory and I hope that I do not feel the same about the issues of Tonga in the next few months. Time will tell.

The new definitive set was not only issued in ordinary sheets but also as a miniature sheet, as illustrated above, so collectors are faced with a double-sized bill with this issue as happened with The Cook Islands and its associated entities. Is this really the way to go about things in these times of financial difficulty?

More New Zealand Personalised Stamps.

Apart from the Vietnam-related stamp mentioned in the previous blog a wide range of subjects make up the 2010 and 2011 "personalised" stamps collections from New Zealand. No explanation of the designs is supplied by New Zealand Post and, as previously mentioned, the collections are made up of sheetlets of gummed or self-adhesive stamps as well as two or three booklets of self-adhesive stamps. The 2010 collection comprises 2 self-adhesive sheetlets, each of 20 different stamps, one sheetlet of 20 gummed stamps and a se-tenant pair of two additional self-adhesive stamps. Additionally there are 2 booklets; one commemorates the 170th anniversary of the New Zealand Customs Service (10 stamps - 9 different designs) and the other celebrates Te Papa Museum in Wellington (10 self-adhesive stamps, 2 each of 5 different designs). The latter booklet is still on sale in the museum gift shop as I witnessed myself on a visit there a week ago. All the stamps of the 2010 collection are either 50c or 60c values. The 2011 collection comprises one sheetlet of 20 self-adhesive stamps and a partial sheet of 21 gummed stamps (4 rows of 5 stamps and one additional attached stamp. Additionally there are 2 self-adhesive booklets; one commemorates the 75th anniversary of Mercy Hospital in Dunedin (2 each of 5 different designs) and the other commemorates The Heart Foundation (10 stamps, 5 of 2 different values). All the stamps of the 2011 collection are 60c values. Presumably if you make the values up to the correct amount, these stamps are usable on international mail and by making them all available this way New Zealand Post has made these stamps fully eligible for full catalogue status and highly collectable. Interesting.

The Mercy Hospital booklet.

The Heart Foundation booklet and stamps.

A charming portrait of an unknown elderly couple, perhaps they were celebrating their golden or diamond wedding anniversary.

The Customs Service booklet and two of the stamps.

The 2011 self-adhesive sheetlet of 20 stamps.

New Zealand Honours The Vietcong But Do They Know It?

The New Zealand Post Office has recently put on sale collections of the personalised stamps which were produced in 2010 and 2011 and presented them as large blocks of setenant designs, some self-adhesive and some gummed and one or two designs in booklets. All very confusing and making available to the general public designs which were previously personal to the individuals who had paid to have these stamps produced using their private pictures and illustrations. However, the stamps are of great interest to philatelists and questionably should be included in catalogues since the stamps have now become "freely available to the general public". However the New Zealand Post Office may have bitten off more than it can chew since one of the designs (illustrated above) appears to honour the Viet Cong against whom New Zealand fought a war from June 1964 to December 1972. It appears to me that the little old man on the design is actually Ho Chi Minh, the leader of the North Vietnamese, who brought an ignominious defeat on the Americans along with their allies which included the New Zealanders. Does New Zealand Post really think this is a suitable subject for stamps now put on sale to the public? Is this stamp an example of reconciliation? I suspect not. I think that this may be an embarrassment to New Zealand Post Office. I recommend buying these personalised stamps for their sheer interest value especially the Viet Cong design. I wonder if they will leave the design on sale when they realise that someone has pulled a fast one in getting them to produce the stamp. I will illustrate some of the less controversial designs in my next blog.

Tonga And Niuafo'ou Are Back; Nauru And Russia; South Sudan.

Apart from some provisional surcharges, Tonga has not issued any stamps since 2008 when two stamps and a miniature sheet were issued to commemorate the coronation of King Siaosi Tupou V.


That issue itself was the first to be released since 4 May 2005 when a miniature sheet had been produced celebrating whale watching off the coast of Tonga. Now, as announced on the WWF Stamp Shop website, it appears that Tonga is returning to stamp issuing since it is planning to release a set of stamps in February or March 2012 depicting local endangered wildlife in the form of the thorny seahorse. Additionally, the subsidiary philatelic entity of Niuafo'ou which has not issued any stamps since 2005 when it too released a "whale-watching" miniature sheet is also to issue a set of WWF stamps in February or March which depict the zebra shark. Previous Niuafo'ou WWF commemoratives depicting the blue crowned lorikeet, have most recently been surcharged to produce provisional stamps for use in Tonga in general and the first, issued July 2008, which is depicted below is exceedingly rare although the second, issued May 2010, is much more easily obtainable.



The WWF site also lists other forthcoming WWF stamps from Commonwealth countries:- Bahamas depicting the Caribbean flamingo (21 March 2012), Fiji depicting the collared lory (April 2012), Rarotonga depicting Cook Islands land snails (February or March 2012), South Georgia with south Atlantic seabirds (February or March 2012) and Nauru depicting the dragon moray (date open).
On the subject of Nauru, I drew attention to the set of 5 stamps that the country issued last year which commemorated the Russian space programme and expressed surprise that Nauru was releasing an issue on such a subject and said that Nauru was "not previously known for ....(having) a close relationship with Russia". How wrong was I? In fact Nauru has had a remarkably close relationship with Russia in recent years and there is a special Wikipedia entry on Nauru-Russia relations. The article alleges that the Russian mafia used Nauru banks to money launder in the 1990's, "approximately USD 70 billion owned by Russian mafia were held in Nauru banks. This equated to 700 times the country's annual output." Then, in 2009, Nauru became only the fourth country to recognise Abkazia and South Ossetia, the two breakaway regions of Georgia which had declared their independence with Russia's support (the other three countries were Nicaragua, Venezuala and Russia itself) and subsequently established diplomatic relations with South Ossetia. The Wikipedia article states that "Russian officials visited Nauru in March 2010 to discuss the allocation of the "huge aid grant" that Russia will be providing to the small country". It is fascinating the things that one discovers about the world through stamp collecting. I guess, if a "huge aid grant" is involved, that we may be expecting a few more future stamp issues from Nauru stressing the country's links with Russia!



Finally to South Sudan. In my blog of 14 November 2011, I highlighted that the first set of this new country's first ever stamp issue to be auctioned on E Bay realised an incredible sum of $231. In the last few days two of the three values were again auctioned on E Bay and this time achieved a more modest price of £31 although of course that left the buyer with the need to track down the missing 2.5ssp value which depicts the country's coat of arms.

Cayes Of Belize.

San Pedro, Ambergris Caye.

As reported last time, Stanley Gibbons has listed Rarotonga as a new philatelic entity in its stamp catalogue although sub-territories with no real political or postal need to issue their own stamps tend to have been given the cold shoulder since The Islands Of Tuvalu deluge of issues in the mid-1980's. The Cayes Of Belize is another short-lived philatelic entity which never received full catalogue status as Rarotonga has done although the stamps were produced in a fairly moderate manner by The Crown Agents which was about as respectable a philatelic agent as you could find at that time. Indeed, the Belize Post Office could even claim a precedent for the issue of stamps by The Cayes, which lie off the coast of Belize, since a type-written stamp (a form of stamp production not unknown elsewhere including the early issues of Uganda) was produced for use on a privately-operated postal service from St. George's Caye to Belize City and is known on covers dated between 28 July 1894 and 27 September 1895. The service was operated by Sydney Cuthbert, a well-off merchant in Belize City who had a summer residence in The Cayes, and having run a service for free on behalf of his neighbours for a while from 1892 he decided to recoup some of the running costs of the yacht he used to transport the post by charging 3c per letter and producing a stamp to be used to indicate that postage had been paid. The costs of professionally printed stamps were deemed to be too high and he therefore resorted to the use of a typewriter to produce the stamps. The stamps were tied to the covers by a straight-line rubber stamp in blue ink, the inscription being "CUTHBERT BROS", and a separate rubber straightline postmark indicated the date of carriage. All examples of this stamp are known applied to covers and no unused examples are known to exist.


Sydney Cuthbert.

On 30 May 1984 the first modern Cayes Of Belize definitive stamps were issued and the set consisted of nine values ranging from 1c to $5 and they showed various aspects of The Cayes, especially tourism, being very attractively designed by the excellent stamp artist, Gordon Drummond and lithographed by the now defunct House Of Questa. Some of the designs are illustrated below. Accompanying the basic set was an extremely difficult to find $10 booklet which included three different panes of stamps (4 x 25c and 2 different 4 x 75c) as well a fourth pane which consisted of a miniature sheet which illustrated a cover with one of Cuthbert's stamps on it and also contained one of the new $3 values which showed a map of Ambergris Caye. The miniature sheet was only available from the booklet.


pane 1 of the $10 booklet showing a Cuthbert stamp on cover.


Two types of inhabitants of The Cayes.


The high values.

I visited Belize myself in November 1989 and visited Ambergris Caye. The Belize Post Office had given up issuing Cayes stamps as early as 1985, one supposes due to poor sales which were probably inhibited by Gibbons' failure to catalogue them. I was able to purchase Cayes stamps at an ordinary counter in the main post office in Belize City but they had long sold out in San Pedro (the "capital" of Ambergris Caye). Following the first issue, several sets of commemoratives had been issued including four stamps which were part of the Crown Agents omnibus set which celebrated the 250th anniversary of Lloyd's List and for which Benham's had produced a "silk" first day cover postmarked at San Pedro (see below) (issued 6 June 1984), four stamps for the Los Angeles Olympic Games (5 October 1984) and four excellent stamps noting the 90th anniversary of the issue of Cuthbert's stamp (5 November 1984). On 20 May 1985, four stamps were issued which commemorated the birth bicentenary of John J Audubon, the American ornithologist, and it was these which were still on sale in Belize City in November 1989. One final issue of a se-tenant strip of four stamps and a miniature sheet which depicted various shipwrecks was issued later in 1985.



The Audubon set used at San Pedro.



One of two silk covers issued to commemorate the Lloyd's List anniversary.


Two of the four Lloyd's list stamps used at San Pedro.


San Pedro post office, November 1989.


Part of a cover with mixed frankings of Belize and Cayes Of Belize stamps posted at San Pedro.



Used at San Pedro, 1989.

Perhaps all these stamps were completely unnecessary but most of them are actually quite attractive and interesting and seem to have been available at ordinary post counters for use by the public on mail. Their status seems to be similar to that of the present Rarotonga stamp issues and are no less collectable than those stamps.
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Rarotonga Listed As A New Philatelic Entity By Gibbons.

I was rather surprised when recently reading the catalogue column of the February 2012 edition of Gibbons Stamp Monthly to find that a new philatelic entity had been added - that of the capital island of The Cook Islands, Rarotonga. The philatelic agency which has produced stamps with The Cook Islands name on them for the past couple of years or so, released 15 stamps and a large sheetlet inscribed "Rarotonga Cook Islands" on 22 July 2011, with the sensible subject of tourism as a basis for their designs. There really does not seem to have been any justifiable reason for a separate issue for Rarotonga since no political change had occurred nor a separate postal service had been established - it was rather like Royal Mail producing separate issues for London (let's hope it does not give them the idea to do so). It does seem very surprising that the editor of the Gibbons Catalogue would accord this artificial entity a separate listing especially as separate island issues have been ignored by the catalogue since the mid-1980's - entities such as the individual items of Tuvalu or St. Vincent or The Cayes Of Belize. In recent times the issues of The Cook Islands have had quite a high profile in Gibbons Stamp Monthly with quite a large article being published last year about the new issues of the territory and the royal engagement sheetlet being given free with the magazine (although rather unhelpfully the sheetlet was divided into two and its distribution occurred over 2 consecutive months meaning the recipients of the free gift ended up with 2 pieces of the sheetlet rather than an intact philatelic item). Perhaps this exposure to these recent Cook Islands issues convinced the editor that Rarotonga deserved to be treated differently from the individual islands of other countries. The stamps are therefore numbered 1 - 15 plus MS16 which in itself is strange since from 1919 until 1931 all Cook Islands stamps were inscribed "Rarotonga" even though they were for use throughout all the islands.


Two inhabitants of Rarotonga.


Rarotongan sunsets (or sunrises or both).


The high values.


The multivalue sheetlet.

Anyway, there we have it - a new entity (or new old entity) for Commonwealth stamp collectors to add to their albums. Perhaps, for consistency, the catalogue editor should reconsider the status of the stamps of some of the entities created in the past although, like the present Rarotonga, there was no justifiable reason for their names to be inscribed on postage stamps. I think the most worthy of all for reconsideration in this new "catalogue anything" culture are the emphemeral Cayes Of Belize stamps with which I will deal in the next blog.


Cayes Of Belize stamp issued 1984.

Madagascar

At some time in the future Madagascar may be admitted to membership of The Commonwealth. The country's application for membership goes back some years but political events of recent years have prevented The Commonwealth from taking its application any further for the present. Certainly Madagascar has a good claim to join the organisation since its links with Great Britain go back to the first part of the 19th century and indeed it could be said that were it not for Britain, the country of Madagascar may not have existed at all, certainly in its current form. Relationships between the two countries go back to the Napoleonic Wars when the British smashed French power in the Indian Ocean area and captured Mauritius, Reunion and Seychelles. Although Reunion was returned to the French after the wars were ended, the British held on to the other island groups. Fear that the French or other powers might gain influence in Madagascar thus threatening the route to India and Ceylon led the newly appointed governor of Mauritius, Robert Townsend Farquhar, to seek ways for the British themselves to gain influence on the island and he decided to support the King of Imerina, Radama I, in his claim to be monarch of the whole of Madagascar. On the 23 October 1817, Radama and the British agreed a treaty of friendship and peace in which the British recognised the king as monarch of the entire island. A further treaty of 1820 resulted in Britain recognising Madagascar as an independent state and promised continuing support to Radama's regime whilst, in return, the Malagasy agreed to abolish slavery throughout Radama's realm. Additionally the British granted Radama a stipend of $1000 in gold, $1000 in silver, 100 barrels of gunpowder, 100 English muskets with 1000 flints, 12 sergeants' swords, 600 pieces of cloth, a full dress uniform for the king and two fine horses. Radama admired British methods of education, government and warfare (particularly as it was Britain that had brought low his great hero, Bonaparte) and he wished to modernise his country in the western European style. He became a great Anglophile. In 1820 he encouraged the London Missionary Society to establish churches, and later schools, in Antananrivo, the capital city. Missionaries poured into the island and by 1821 they were exerting notable influence on the king and thousands converted to Christianity. Radama I died on 27 July 1827 and was succeeded by his wife, Ranavalona I. Unlike her late husband, she determined to preserve the cultural and political sovereignty of Madagascar and repudiated the treaties with Britain and prohibited the practice of Christianity in the islands in 1835. British missionaries were expelled from the island and local converts were persecuted in the period which they called "ny tani maizina", "the time when the land was dark". Despite this, ambassadors were sent to European nations in 1836 to 37 and a Malagasy stamp of 1969 shows a painting by Henry Room which depicts the audience of the Malagasy ambassadors with Queen Adelaide, the wife of King William IV, which took place in 1837 (the king himself was sick and dying).


There is a marvelous account of the reign of Ranavalona I in the rather luridly titled book "Female Caligula Ranavalona, The Mad Queen Of Madagascar" by Keith Laidler (published by Wiley, 2005). The monarch died, not before time, on 16 August 1861 and her successor, Radama II, and his successor, Ranavalona II showed themselves more open to French influence rather than returning to a closer relationship with the British. The French grew increasingly rapacious in their wish to seize Madagascar for themselves and, in 1883, conjured up an excuse to invade the island and wage war against the Malagasy. After the war the French seized the northern town of Antsiranana which they called Diego Suarez. Meanwhile, the British community at Antananarivo had established a mail system in May 1883 whereby the post was sent by runner to the British Consulate at Tamatave from where the mail was forwarded by the French post office. In March 1884, W C Pickersgill, the British Vice-Consul, reorganised the service and issued stamps for use on inland and overseas mail. These stamps were usually only gummed in the corners to facilitate the removal of the stamps from overseas mail at Port Louis in Mauritius where they were replaced by Mauritius stamps or at the Vice-Consulate where they were replaced by French stamps for transmission via Tamatave and Reunion. The stamps of the British Consular Mail were suppressed in 1887 although the postal service continued to operate with the charges paid in cash.


In 1890, the British accepted the formal imposition of a French protectorate on Madagascar in return for French acknowledgment of the British protectorate in Zanzibar (for the same reason the British had ceded the island of Heligoland to the Germans). The Malagasy themselves were less prepared to accept this and the French bombarded and occupied the harbours of Toamasina and Mahajanga in December 1894 and January 1895 respectively. These flagrant acts of imperialism were followed by a French force marching on and attacking Antananarivo with a bombardment of the royal palace which resulted in the deaths of many of the Malagasy. While this assault on the Malagasy was taking place, the government of Queen Ranavalona III agreed that a syndicate of British merchants in the capital, including the Vice-Consul, should operate an inland postal service during the period of the war with France. Mail was sent to Vatomandry and forwarded via Durban where the stamps of Natal were added. The first issue of stamps prepared for the service was typeset by the London Missionary Society Press at Antananarivo in the values of 1d, 4d, 6d, 8d, 1s, 2s and 4s and were released in January 1895. A second issue which had been typographed by John Haddon & Co. of London was released in March 1895 and depicted Malagasy runners in six values:- 2d, 4d, 6d, 1s, 2s and 4s. The French entered the capital on 30 September 1895 and the British inland mail postal service was discontinued. The six values of the second issue are depicted below.






The French imperialistic designs on Madagascar were finally realised when the island was made a French colony on 28 February 1897 and this status was maintained until the Second World War when the French administration in the island remained loyal to the Vichy regime in France which was collaborating with Nazi Germany. It became necessary for the British to once more become involved with Madagascar as it was not possible to allow such a treacherous regime to maintain power in such a strategic place in the Indian Ocean. The British invaded the island in 1942 and occupied the country from 5 May 1942 to 13 October 1946. During this period French stamps were used on post but British censorship was applied. Having defeated the Vichy forces in Madagascar, the British allowed a Free French civil administration to be established in Diego Suarez and Antisarena on 10 September 1942 and on the rest of the island from 7 January 1943. The French finally granted full independence to the island on 26 June 1960.
One can not help but feel that once Madagascar returns to full democracy it should be allowed to join The Commonwealth, certainly there is a vast amount of shared history between the country and Great Britain. The stamp issues mentioned above form a basis for a collection which illustrates the link between Britain and Madagascar and serves as a prequel to any stamp collection which would be formed by Commonwealth stamp collectors if the country is ever allowed to join The Commonwealth.