Question On Nicaragua/Mosquito Provisionals

The Michel catalog under Nicaragua lists stamps issued for the Mosquito Coast, issued in 1894 and 1899. Stamps of Nicaragua, overprinted 'Mosquito Provisional'. Here is a link showing the stamps: http://www.stampcircuit.com/categor...squito-coast. I drew a total blank trying to research the context in which these stamps were issued. I know the Mosquito Reserve - an Indian reserve - was annexed by Nicaragua in 1894. So the stamps were issued right after that.

Does anybody know more? Who issued these stamps and why?

https://books.google.com/books?id=y...onal&f=false

Hope this helps Gerben

Recalling from an occasionally flawed memory..........and now with Scott Classic catalog in hand. ;-) The reference cited by Jkjblue mentions Bluefields as the capitol of the Mosquito Reservation. The area issued its own stamps for a time in the early 20th century because of a difference in currency used there, as opposed to the rest of Nicaragua. Stamps were overprinted with a B (for Bluefields) and Dpto Zelaya (for Zelaya province). Also used were B and Costa Atlantica and numerous surcharged values. The USA Scott catalog notes that dangerous counterfeits exist of most of these overprints. Same for Cabo Gracias A Dios in the extreme northeastern part of Nicaragua which also issued its own stamps for a time.

I have never seen the overprints cited by SWH until now, but maybe issued for the same reasons. Several years ago, the now defunct auction house in Florida; Michael Rogers; auctioned off a bunch of Bluefields covers (Michael now works for Daniel F. Kelleher auctions). I haven't checked for a while, but the Rogers web site may still be up. You can check there for those auctions.

@Jim

Thanks Jim. Is it correct that I can only see small snippets of the text or is there a way to actually browse the full text?

@Climber Steve

Thanks. The Bluefields and Cabo issues date from somewhat later. Michel has a short introduction to the Mosquito issues that suggests the context was not currency related. Unfortunately the introduction, other than that, does not make things much clearer. At least not for me......

SWH: the web site of the American Philatelic Society ( http://stamps.org ) lists the Nicaragua Study Group among its affiliates. There is a quarterly journal. The contact e-mail given is momotombo@woh.rr.com . If you do an inquiry to them, let them know you've tried to get an answer on this web site. If they can solve your problem, do write back and let us know. Cheers! Steve

It's a report on page 121-122 of the 1898 American Journal of Philately-digitized by Google. I can see it using Chrome- can you?

Steve, thanks for this suggestion. I have contacted them. Curious to see what comes out of it. And I will certainly come back to SCF with any news.

Jim, the odd thing is I can't. I just get three snippets from the pages in the Journal that have 'Mosquito Provisional' in them - two from the index and one from the article itself. Maybe something about differences in copyright for US and non US visitors? Anyway I've got the full article from another source now, so I'm fine. Interesting article. And thanks again for looking this up. I had not come across it yet.

Following Steve's suggestion I contacted the Nicaragua Study Group. They have published an article on the Mosquito Provisional in the latest edition of their quarterly Nicarao. Great article, loaded with information. And they allowed me to quote from the article and use images for my own website. Interested: http://www.stampworldhistory.com/co...s/nicaragua/

So Steve: thanks again. And compliments to the Nicaragua Study Group.

Gerben, you have out done yourself.

Thanks for exploring this Nicaraguan bit of obscure and fascinating stamp history.

My pleasure Jim.

Glad it all worked out. Mystery & problem solved. As a side note, I bought a mostly complete Nicaragua collection, from beginning to about 1975 or so, a couple months ago. It will be a while before I really get into it. But the study group may be an entity for me to join.