Thank you for that post, Perf12.
I'd like to add one of these overprints with a bit of a question.
In 1939 virtually all French colonies issued a pair of stamps with a common design to celebrate or promote the 1939 New York World's Fair.
The pairs consisted of a red lower denomination stamp most often 1.25F and blue higher denomination stamp usually 2.25F.
In 6 of the 24 colonies which had the joint issue, there were then Free French overprints made during the War using various typographical elements and slogans. Five of the six colonies overprinted both stamps in the pair. Some colonies even issued several varieties of overprint but it was always on both.
But Madagascar - the sixth overprinting colony - only overprinted the higher denomination stamp below. I am curious to one day find out why. Perhaps all the other Madagascar overprints supplied sufficient quantities in the needed variety of denominations, but I do not see another Madagascar overprint at 1.25F denomination. Maybe stocks of the lower denomination 1.25F red (Sc. 209) of this design were exhausted at the time the overprints were done on Sc. 210 to make it this Sc. 240.
1942 Sc.240/Y&T 238
Posted 07/05/2020 4:27 pm
