Your Favourite Overprint

Yep: they were a bit all over the place:

Rod, your first Italy is a Bill of Exchange revenue. The underlying stamp was may have been from the 1908 series; the overprint is later, but I can't tell you how much later. I don't believe the overprint changed the purpose of the stamp.

The second converted a parcel stamp into a 2-cent stamp valid for printed matter. I believe the date is 1890.

I like them both.

Cheers Collin, personal knowlege or a catalogue?
I can only think of perhaps Billigs if not in
Forbin.
Where are you getting your info?
sneaky varlets need to know :)

The 2c is listed in Scott. I can give you the Scott number later today, but I doubt you want it. I will confirm the 1890, though. There were a handful so overprinted, and a few have a healthy CV (not that it makes them any more or less interesting).

I have a Notepad document with the Tassa info, which likely means I cut it from a website or newsgroup and pasted it into a document for safekeeping. (Safekeeping being a euphemism for "saved on a hard drive never to be found again.")

This has got to be one of my favourite overprints/surcharges ever, it simply says it all. Venezuela keeps claiming two-thirds of Guyana's territory.

Great stuff!...now I'll look at overprints with a better appreciation.

-IBFS

Nice to see this thread revived!

One of my favourite Bhopal George VI era overprints:



The 1949 8 Anna seriffed SERVICE, with the 'SERAICE' error at position 2, SG O343 and O343a

And a George VI era curio from Soruth:



In the division of the old British India into India and Pakistan in 1947, the Muslim ruler of the predominantly Hindu State of Soruth (more properly Junagadh) opted to join Pakistan. However, his State was surrounded by Hindu territory, and the ruler eventually fled, leaving the State's affairs in a fair amount of chaos.

Soruth tried to order new supplies of SARKARI ("Service") stamps from the printers, the Indian Security Printing Press, but they were too busy with the new stamps for India. So Soruth fell back on overprinting its stamps locally, and when supplies dried up in the outlying towns, handwriting 'SARKARI' or 'SERVICE' onto postage stamps, so that the wheels of the State bureaucracy could keep on turning. This pair was used that way, from the town on Un(a) in 1949.

These usages are mentioned (and priced) in a footnote in Gibbons.

My favorite overprint is my avatar.





It is a "Bezirkshandstempel" from Soviet Occupied Germany. With an unexpected revaluation of the currency on June 21, 1948, all the current stamps were demonetized.

There was not enough time to design and print a new series of postage stamps. The post offices were instructed to apply their local hand stamp, in German, a "Bezirkshandstempel" on stamps sold from their existing stock to indicate that the new rate was paid.

With 20 denominations of stamps, different colors of hand stamp ink and a unique hand stamp from every post office in Soviet Occupied Germany, it is estimated that there are over 30,000 possible different stamps in this series.

These stamps were only valid until a new series of overprints was issued on July 3, 1948. Because of the brief timeframe, enterprising postal workers hand stamped their remaining stock of stamps for sale to collectors.

My avatar is from my set of stamps from Sommerfeld, a town in the Potsdam (36) district. The town was probably a wide spot in the road in 1948 so although the stamps are genuine, it is most likely that my set was made for collectors.

I am partial to this set not only because I collect Soviet Occupied Germany but also the town, Sommerfeld, is basically my last name, Sommerfeldt!

I came across this thread in the process of writing an article on overprints and thought I'd add a few more. It's a great topic!

Two of these four errors were discoveries in my collection as I was hunting for material.

The repurposed Nicaraguan telegraph stamp is my nomination for worst-centered overprint ever. It takes skill to land one directly along the perforations.



Besides giving Gen. Lawton a bindi dot, this Philippines Official Business overprint is inverted. This is one I didn't notice until close observation.



Here's another one from Nicaragua -- a double imprint of an official overprint. These officials were pretty sloppy in general.



But the mother of all overprints in my collection is this one and I didn't even notice the error at first because of everything else going on. There are overprints in three different colors here: a changed denomination (5) in blue at bottom; a red "tughra," monogram of the sultan; and a black overprint for the territory of Cilicia, near the Syrian border, which was occupied by Allied forces at end of WWI. But if that weren't enough, the Cilicia overprint is doubled! So four overprints on one stamp -- can anyone top that?

Great stamps! I enjoyed perusing them. I hope you enjoy these.

Don't know anything about this stamp except that it is USSR.

These "star" overprints were issued in 1922, when the Soviets changed the postage denominations. Because they were using Russian czarist stamps they decided to obliterate the Imperial eagle crest with a prominent hammer and sickle of the new USSR.

GregAlex, thanks for the info.