Dear fellow butterfly/moth stamp collectors and experts,
I was wondering which butterfly/moth-design bearing stamp is the oldest and thus would like to ask you all for sharing the oldest butterfly/moth stamp in your collections.
As for Japan, although it's a revenue stamp, I reckon the first butterfly/moth design has been adopted in Meiji 7 (1874) for the silk worm egg revenue stamp.
The revenue stamp depicts the silk moth (Bombyx mori Linnaeus, 1758) and its cocoon as the outer frame. The two branches are mulberry leafs - larval food plant for silk worm.
This revenue stamp has been used to pay the inspection fee of silk worm egg sheets (hard card sheets with silk worm eggs) and also as the certificate for passing the inspection. Silk worm egg sheets were one of the most important exported commodity for Japan then, and to avoid fraudulent transactions (such as attaching dead eggs and even small seeds onto the sheet) all legitimate silk worm egg sheets had to accompany a silk worm egg revenue stamp.
Thank you all in advance, and looking forward to seeing your classics !
- Hironobu
Posted 10/06/2023 9:31 pm
