Three days of philately in Gibraltar

By Richard Garcia

The exhibitions to be held on 17 September at the Garrison Library will include some interesting Gibraltar material.
If you ask any collector when were the first Gibraltar stamps issued, the chances are that the reply will be 1886, because it was on 1 January 1886 that control of the Gibraltar Post Office was handed over by the imperial government in London to the colonial government in Gibraltar. This answer is, perhaps surprisingly, wrong. The first adhesive stamps to bear the name Gibraltar were issued one and a half years earlier, in June 1884. The reason why they are not well known is that these first stamps were issued for revenue purposes and were not used on letters. They were inscribed “Stamp Duty”.

In a way, every stamp issued in Gibraltar has been a revenue stamp, because it is a way of paying a tax or an amount due. That is why so much care was taken in the past to ensure that stamps could not be forged, as it would defraud government revenue. Devices like a watermark in the paper on which stamps were printed were intended to prevent fraud. Another device was using fugitive inks, which would run if in contact with water or a solvent. In the case of revenue stamps, a line was often drawn across the stamp in indelible pencil to prevent reuse.

Most of the stamps of Gibraltar, from 1903 to the 1980s, were postage and revenue stamps and could be used to prepay the postage on a letter or an amount due either to government or to the courts. It was only in the reign of Queen Victoria that there were separate revenue and postage stamps. The reason for this is that government revenue was collected, before 1898, in Spanish pesetas and centimos; and Gibraltar postage stamps initially had the face value in sterling currency, shillings and pence. So it was not possible to use the postage stamps to pay fees or duties that were payable in pesetas and centimos.

There will be an interesting display of these early Gibraltar revenue stamps at the Garrison Library. At first, the stamp duty stamps had to be individually cancelled by hand with the person affixing the stamp signing on the stamp in red or black ink. This took too long, so when revenue stamps were used to pay court fees, datestamps were eventually introduced. Eventually, in the 1980s, the law was changed and court fees and registry fees could be paid in cash. It was practically the end of the usage of adhesive stamps for revenue purposes.

The currency in Gibraltar changed from Spanish currency to sterling currency on 1 October 1898. This was because the Spanish government passed a law making it illegal to export Spanish silver coin. This meant that it was no longer possible for the banks in Gibraltar to obtain silver coin from Spain, at a time when Spanish banknotes were not legal in Gibraltar, and so it was not possible to continue to use a currency in Gibraltar that depended on illegally sourced coins. The reason for the change in the law in Spain was that the war in 1898 between Spain and the United States over Cuba created a rush on the banks in Spain, with panic-stricken people wanting to withdraw their money in silver coin because the intrinsic value of the silver was worth the same as the value of the coin. This therefore gave rise to an acute shortage of Spanish silver coin, and the need for the Spanish government to ensure that it remained within Spain.

When sterling currency was adopted as the only legal tender in Gibraltar in October 1898, new postage stamps were issued and also new revenue stamps. This second issue of revenue stamps was in use from 1898 to 1 May 1903, when the new stamps for King Edward VII were issued. The Edwardian stamps were dual purpose, they covered postage and revenue and were the first Gibraltar stamps to do so.

Other stamps to look out for at the exhibitions at the Garrison Library are the stunning errors on stamps that will be displayed by Stephen Viñales, and the original artwork for some of the early stamps of Gibraltar of the reign of Queen Elizabeth II. One of the stamp essays (which means a sketch for a stamp) was produced by Mario Finlayson. It shows a different aspect of his creative spirit. Other essays, for the same issue of 1960, were submitted by Natalio Langdon, the architect who designed the Queen’s Cinema, the Queen’s Hotel and many other landmark buildings in Gibraltar.

Harking back to the interest of the colonial government to prevent stamps being used fraudulently, there will also be displayed – this time on 16 September – some of the Gibraltar stamps that were forged by the greatest stamp forger ever, Jean de Sperati. In addition, there will be a number of other stamps on display with a forged overprint of the name GIBRALTAR on the stamps of Bermuda. Some forgers were not sophisticated: they applied the name Gibraltar to a Bermuda stamp that had been used and bore a clear postmark reading Hamilton, Bermuda!

An important element of what the three days of philately will show is how the postage and revenue stamps of Gibraltar record aspects of the social history of Gibraltar, and transcend mere gummed labels to tell a fascinating part of the story of Gibraltar and its people.

The exhibitions can be visited on Tuesday 16 (morning and afternoon), Wednesday 17 (afternoon) and Thursday 18 (morning and afternoon). Different displays will be in the cabinets in each of the mornings and afternoons. Admission is free.