Philippines Telegraph Overprint

Scott's doesn't show the Telegraph stamps, but it is pretty obvious from the middle example that they exist with a very specific overprint, "Recargo de Consumos". What I have here is Scott 105 (or 106) with the 1887 Magenta overprint, then I have the "normal" Telegraph stamp in the middle with the specific overprint. The right stamp is what confuses me as it is the Scott 79 (or 80) but with the Telegraph Overprint. No mention is made of this overprint on this stamp, and I am just checking with our experts to see if this is a normal variation. Thanks.

Hi Partime,

The second stamp is a telegraph stamp that has been overprinted for use as a revenue stamp, i.e. it's a revenue overprint rather than a telegraph one.

The third stamp is a postage stamp that has similarly been overprinted for use as a revenue stamp using the same overprint.

Where it gets complicated is that these stamps were valid for a period in 1889 for use for postage so the SG catalogue lists them as SG 155 (brown) and SG 149 (blue).

Thanks Nigel. That explains quite a bit. I happen to have several of the Telegraph stamps overprinted with the Revenue Overprint, so it appears that this was a very common practice.

The overprinted telegraph stamp is Forbin #25; the overprinted postal stamp is Forbin #20.

In 1914 (the last year of Forbin), the overprinted postals were generally low catalogue value, and about half of the overprinted telegraphs were low catalogue value, but a few had higher values, including three of the overprints on the 20c lilac that had very significant premiums in CV.

Relative rarity may have changed since 1914, of course, but I use the old values as a possible indicator of rarity.

If any of your telegraph overprints are on the 20c value, post up some scans and we'll try to i.d. them.

Here are the (4) others. One is a 20c version, others are lower values.

Forbin ##24, 29, 26 and 23. (Left to right.) The blue is the lowest CV of the four, around the minimum. The 20c and the 2c are 4 times higher, and the 1c is 10 times higher. (A few of the 20c values are 50x, 100x and more, for what it is worth.)

Again, back in 1914.

Thanks to Cjd for help in identifying these items.

The left-most stamp is #19...I missed that it was not overprinted on a telegraph. Again, low value in 1914.