Friday, 26 November 2010

The First Channel Island Local?

Was this the first Channel Island Local?






Only one example is known of a cover with a Queen Victoria 1881 1d lilac, postmarked in Jersey, 3rd November 1893. 'Nothing unusual about that,seen loads of covers with 1d lilacs' you may say, true there are hundreds, possibly thousands of 1d lilacs cancelled in Jersey.

It is only when you take a close look at this particular 1d lilac, that you see the overprint, 'LOCAL POST JERSEY.' As I said it is the only known copy, to a local Jersey address, and almost certainly privately produced.

Someone had definite views about Jersey having it's own postage as early as 1893.

This does bring up a few questions :

How many were overprinted?

Were they overprinted in a sheet or one at a time?

Who did it?

Are there any other surviving examples?






If you know any more please add to this,

Thanks. Woody. 

(Cover from G.Marriner collection.)                                            

Monday, 1 November 2010

What are Channel Island Local Stamps?

Channel Island Local Stamps are exactly that, Local Stamps of the Channel Islands.

There are a great number of issues which were not issued by the main stream Postal Service, the GPO as it was back in the dark ages.

There have been 'Private Posts', 'Carriage Labels', 'Parcel Stamps', 'Cinderellas' all sorts of names for all sorts of stamps or labels or... well you see what I mean.

There has never been an all encompassing name for these stamps of the Channel Islands, so with a spark of inspiration Channel Island Local Stamps seems pretty good, and the fact that Jon Aitchison used the phrase Channel Island Locals for his 2003 book, I reckon that either one or a combination of both fits the bill.