"Herm Island" Stamp......... Is It Recognized?

Hi,
I came into a 6d "Herm Island" stamp with a Europa overprint dated 1961.

At first I thought this was a British stamp, but I can't verify that.

Is "Herm Island" somebodies "Cinderella" or ???

Thanks all!

*** Moved by Staff to a more appropriate forum. ***

The World Stamp Almanac states --- "Great Britain, Guernsey local carriage labels".

Ebay has several offers under "Herm Islands" that have the Europa overprint and they do not reference any Scott numbers in their descriptions. One specific entry that offers a set of triangle stamps has a photo of an album page which has text that indicates the stamps were considered local and we required for use on mail within the island but anything outside the island would require British stamps as well.

The following is extracted from Herm Island Website that indicates British stamps were still required for legal postage.

"The postal history of Herm began on 1 May 1925 when the British Post Office established a sub office on the island. This was open for only half an hour each day, but even this limited operation was uneconomic and the office was closed on 30 October 1938.

In 1948 the then Tenant of Herm, Mr A.G. Jefferies, was seeking to exploit the island's tourist potential and asked for the office to be reopened. However the Postmaster General refused to do so and Mr Jefferies decided to establish his own local postal service from Herm to St Peter Port in Guernsey, where it would be handed over to the Post Office for onward transmission. The first stamps were produced for sale on 26 May 1949, though all mail also had to carry British stamps. The Herm stamps were placed on the back of envelopes, or in the top left hand corner of postcards. A single stamp was also issued to pay for urgent messages carried by pigeon post, as Herm did not have a telephone link to Guernsey until late 1949. Herm stamps were produced until, on 1 October 1969, Guernsey took over control of its own postal services from the British GPO. The Tenant of Herm was no longer permitted to produce stamps or allow them to be fixed to postal items.

Finally, Herm Island can also can be found on the following site which deals with so called "Bogus Issues". (http://www.iswsc.org/iswsc_identbogus.html#H).


Hope this helps.

Thank you! I "yahooed" Herm Island and while I got a lot of info, I could find nothing relative to the stamps.

Ha, once again I find myself with a non "certified" stamp to add to the many others that came before. I wish I could find it in me to just throw them away, but I can't.

Thanks again!

Don't you dare throw them away !

Herm Island stamps are very attractive AND saw actual postal use, albeit a local one. They did serve their purpose, although some issues were made or overprinted for collectors.

The link from hobson is not altogether factual and has many errors. Either that or their terminology is very different than mine. !

Londonbus1

Hi,
I was joking about "throwing away"........ I am known as a pack rat by friends and family.

Still, I have so many cinderellas and unauthorized or put into service stamps, and no acceptable place to put them, except of course glassine envelopes.

Herm Island Locals.
Herm Island Postcard.



5d Birds.



8 doubles. Birds.
A "double" is worth just under 1 penny.



For the numismatist.........
The currency of the Island, in which the natives make contracts, and often keep their accounts, are livres, sols, and deniers tournois; the word tournois being used to distinguish the coin of Tours from that of Paris; but the latter being abolished, the former seems to have been retained, to mark the difference from sterling or English currency. A livre tournois is worth one shilling and 6/14ths ; a sol is 6/7ths of a penny sterling; a leard (commonly called a double), 7/8ths of a sol, and 1/7th of a penny; a denier, 1/14th of a penny sterling; and a furluque, ½ of a denier, or 1/24th of a penny sterling. This last piece of money, the furluque,4 was coined in this Island, as appears from an ordinance of the royal court made 6th October, 1623.

This might be handy:
http://www.hermstamps.co.uk/stamps.htm

To Rods point from 4 years ago, these are considered Local Post. Here's my only example and though a little worse for wear, appears to be postally used.

Hi,postally used? Maybe..but along with British stamps.

Nice additions Thanks all.

If I recall correctly, I had a postally used Herm Bi-sect, gave it away to an SCF member.


I did indeed..........

Postally used or not? Might not the postcards have been sold to tourists ready stamped and cancelled, with the only postal use occurring when the tourist returned to Guernsey? I remember buying various stamps and covers when I visited Herm as a child.

Entirely feasible Geoff.
One takes with a grain of salt, a lot of these British locals.
One can adopt cold pragmatism, or dwell in the romance of what may have been.

In the 20 years of service, Herm's stamps covered 27 issues.
That totals 112 stamps (for the completionist)
that does not cover the bisects, when the half penny was out of stock.
The service closed in 1969

Some first stamps, including the Pigeon Post stamp, that looks very much like the stamp offered on this forum for $24 some years ago, by Londonbus.

Hi all, I didn't see the Europa 1961 overprints mentioned by the OP in this thread, so thought I would add them.

These 6 stamps were issued in conjunction (though not officially) with the 1961 Europa issues and are overprinted "Europa 18 Sept 1961" for the commemoratives and "Europa 18-9-61" for the definitives. I have them as part of my (Extended) Europa 1961 collection.