Home Catalogue index Volume 1 index Volume 2 index

Preview of Stamps Catalogue: VOLUME 1

HAWAII 1851 Issue (Missionary issue)

Sandwich Islands

Return To Catalogue - 1853 issue - 1859-1863 issues - 1864-1899 issues - Hawaii Miscellaneous

Note: on my website many of the pictures can not be seen! They are of course present in the catalogue;
contact me if you want to purchase it.

1851 Value, inscription "Hawaiian Postage" or "H.I.US. Postage", so-called missionary issue

Image found on: http://www.si.edu/postal/collections/recent95.htm (National Postal Museum, Smithsonian Institution, USA), reduced size

(Images obtained from a Siegel auction)

Stamps once belonging to the famous collector Ferrari (images obtained from a Siegel auction)

Image reproduced with permission from: http://www.sandafayre.com

(These three images were obtained from a Bennett auction)

(Images obtained from a Schuyler Rumsey auction)

Image obtained from a Harmers auction

  2 c blue (only 16 stamps are known to have survived)
  5 c blue
  13 c blue (Hawaiian Postage)
  13 c blue (H.I.&U.S. Postage)

These stamps, the so-called 'Missionaries' were placed on sale on October 1st, 1851.  They were called 'Missionaries' because they are almost always found on post from American missionaries in Hawaii to their family back in the United States. The 2c Missionary was used to paid for newspapers to the U.S.A. The 5c Missionary was for Hawaiian postage. The 13c Missionary paid for letters to the East Coast of the U.S.A. The text 'Hawaiian Postage' was changed into 'H.I.&U.S Postage' to make it clearer to the public that a part of US postage had to be paid aswell in the 13 c issue.

vc = very common
c  = common
*  = not so common
** = uncommon

*** = very uncommon
R   = rare
RR  = very rare
RRR = extremely rare

Part of an envelope with four 2 c and one 5 c stamps:

The above image was found on http://stamp.uuu.ru/myweb8/gl_7_11.htm, the same image can also be found on http://www.rfrajola.com/grinnells/comps.htm.These are Grinnell forgeries (71 Grinnell forgeries were 'discovered' in 1919, 43 of them sold to a stamp dealer, for more information see: http://www.hawaiianstamps.com/mi_grinnell.html or http://www.sil.si.edu/silpublications/grinnell/grinnell-intro.htm). By the way, the great forgery expert Varro E. Tyler believed that the Grinnell stamps could be genuine.

A Grinnell forgery(?) (image obtained from a Siegel auction); however, it doesn't resemble the Grinnell forgeries of the Frajola website.

Avery interesting document concerning the Grinnell forgeries (including many images) can be found at: http://www.mysticstamp.com/PDFs/CaseGrinnells.pdf or http://www.rfrajola.com/grinnells/comps.htm.

Forgeries:

Many forgeries exist, even in wrong colours:

Forgeries in blue and the same forgeries in fancy colors as well.

A 5 c blue forgery and also a 5 c in black, the 13 c is apparently made by the same forger:

(Forgery with a period after 'Cents'! At least one other forgery should exist with a period after 'Cents')

The above three forgeries of the 2 c can be recognized by the strange corner ornaments in the lower right corner (above the 's' of 'Cents'). The first forgery has a spike with two curved lines in the corner. The second one has a circle with a spike coming out of it. The third (in red!) apparently was made by the same forger as the second forgery. They both have an unreadable cancel with date '2/10'.

Another forgery of the 5 cents value seems to exist with '5 Cents' instead of 'Five Cents'

A good site on the forgeries of this site can be found at http://www.hawaiianstamps.com/mi_current.html

Scott forgeries (the same person who edits the catalogues!):

The Scott forgeries of the 2, 5 and 13 c (Hawaiian postage) can be easily recognized by inspecting the corners of the ornaments (below the 'P' and 'e' of 'postage' and above the lower '13' and 's' of 'Cents'. There are leafs in the corner that are not connected to the central design. The 5 c has inscription '5 Cents' instead of 'Five Cents'. The design of the 13 c forgery is identical to the image given in "The illustrated catalogue of postage stamps" by J.E.Gray (1870, page 166).

(Peter Winter forgeries, made somewhere in the 1980's)

I presume that this Winter forgery is printed on modern white paper, as all his other forgeries that I have seen. Peter Winter has also reproduced the two types of the altered 13c stamps.

Winter forgeries on letters or pieces of envelopes. I've seen other Winter forgeries (an 1859 2 c blue forgery) on the same envelope (which is also forged) addressed to "Eliza A. Danzon, or Jacob H. Danzon from 273 Chevy Street New York".

Another Peter Winter product.

Then there are the above mentionned Grinnell forgeries.

For stamps of Hawaii issued in 1853, click here

Copyright by Evert Klaseboer