Post & Tele Museum - Købmagergade 37 - Postboks 2053 - DK-1012 København K
Tlf.: (+45) 33 41 09 00 - e-mail: museum@ptt-museum.dk - www.ptt-museum.dk

(Museumsposten 1996-1)
A New Rare Stamp


By Erik Jensen

A rapidly adopted increase in postal rates in Greenland as of 2nd January 1996 had the effect that the Postal Service of Greenland did not have time to produce new stamps to be used in the beginning of the year.


The problem was solved by overprinting the remainder of 25 ore and 1 krone stamps featuring the portrait of Queen Margrethe with new values, 4.25 kr (letters in Greenland and second-class letters to Denmark) and 4.50 kr (letters for Denmark) respectively. Production of the provisional (temporary) stamps took place early December 1995 in the stamp printing house of Danish Postal Service which was also enjoined to control the stamps and pack them for dispatch to the various post offices in Greenland.

There must have been some difficulties with the control because during the first week of January two customers at the post office in Illussat discovered that 15 of the sheets of 4.25 kr stamps which they had just bought were provided with reversed overprints of the new indication of value.

The Postal Service of Greenland learned about the case and asked all post offices to go through their stocks of the provisional stamps. In this way further 10 sheets with reversed overprints were revealed! The sheets were immediately withdrawn.

At the request of one of the benefactors of the museum the Postal Service of Greenland has willingly donated the museum one of the sheets with reversed overprint. As a matter of fact the expression “reversed overprint” is not completely correct as the error arose when a folder of 25 sheets were placed upside down during the overprinting. Under all circumstances it is a matter of a brand new, sensational variety of the kind that makes it ever so exciting to collect stamps.

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Post & Tele Museum - Købmagergade 37 - Postboks 2053 - DK-1012 København K - Tlf.: (+45) 33 41 09 00 - e-mail: museum@ptt-museum.dk - www.ptt-museum.dk