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Library
This is a revised version
of what was originally published in
the 3rd Quarter 2002
issue of the Philippine Philatelic Journal of the International
Philippine Philatelic Society,
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MODERN DAY RARITY: THE 2000
NINOY AQUINO
HANDSTAMPED SURCHARGES
By Dr. Ngo Tiong Tak
For the past two
years or so, there has not been many exciting new issues from Philpost, but a few collectors do know that late in 2000, there was
a really unbelievable and controversial new issue that more than
makes up for this lack of excitement lately.
Most collectors
know that due to the tight financial situation at Philpost, stamp
production was drastically affected. Since the last quarter of 1998,
commemorative stamps are usually issued in quantities of 50,000
only. The postal officials want such "expensive stamps" (cost of
production is at 65 cents per stamp, compared to less than 15 cents
for small-sized definitives) to be primarily sold to collectors and
not used for postage. They want the entire printing to be sold
within six months (now the sales period is further reduced to a
ridiculous and hard to implement three months only)!
EXCESS STOCKS /
POSTAL RATES OBSOLETE
Years before, there
was excess printing of most issues, and with each new postage rate
hike, many values became obsolete. Unless such stamps are
surcharged, they usually end up stocked in the vaults for many
years. Compounding the problem of obsolete stamp stocks are the huge
quantities of stamps being held as evidence in cases filed against
previous chiefs and custodians of the Philatelic Section. In recent
years, many of these obsolete stocks were taken out of storage when
the denominations happen to conform to new postage rates, or when
they can be used as "make-up" stamps and/or in combinations with
others to come up with the current rates. However, there are still a
lot that remain unusable.
For years, there
were suggestions to destroy these obsolete stamps. Unfortunately,
the Commission on Audit (COA) refuses to approve the destruction of
undamaged or "good" stamps; therefore, the most sensible way to get
rid of such stocks would be to surcharge them. However, some are in
such limited quantities that if they are surcharged, they will
become instant rarities! Many others cannot be machine surcharged
because the sheets are "repaired". (When APO-NEDA was the
printer, they often delivered sheets with one or more stamps removed
due to some misprint and they replaced these by pasting an equal
number of stamps on the sheet margins. At first, Amstar continued
this practice, but later on, abandoned this annoying method of
salvaging misprinted sheets.) For stocks that are impractical or
impossible to machine surcharge, they can be cancelled-to-order and
sold on a per-piece basis, regardless of face value. Philpost can
then sell large quantities of "collections", generating more
philatelic revenues and at the same time, supply the philatelic
market with cheap stamps for beginners, giving the hobby a much
needed boost. Unfortunately, such suggestions were never heeded.
RECOMMENDED
MEASURES
Then, the
unbelievable happened! The Postage Division personnel recommended
the manual surcharging of obsolete stamps with the use of rubber
stamps to the Postmaster General; and, wonder of wonders... this
crude method of surcharging, reminiscent of the handstamped "K.P "
official stamps during the Japanese Occupation and the handstamped
"VICTORY" stamps of 1944, was almost instantly approved!
The plan was to
surcharge all obsolete values in "repaired" or partial sheets, and
loose stamps, and those with quantities of less than 20,000. All
such stamps with denominations lower than P5 will be surcharged to
P5 and those above P5 but below P10 will be surcharged to P10. This
involves literally hundreds of different stamps from several
decades!
When I first
learned of their plan to recommend such to the PMG, I strongly
objected and cautioned them against this. And even without the
knowledge of the Philatelic Division, they still went ahead with
their recommendation and got the approval quickly.
Realizing that
there seemed to be no way of stopping this, I suggested that they
record the quantities of each stamp surcharged, and control their
sale strictly. Starting late October 2000 (?), the eight or so employees
of the Postage Division started surcharging the first four stamps taken
out from the vaults: P2.30 Abelardo definitive of 1982, 60s Rizal's
"Noli Me Tangere" of 1986, P3.60 Aquino stamp of 1986 and 75s
Christmas stamp of 1988. Each of these stamps is to be surcharged to
P5 with the use of two rubber stamps, one for the two deleting bars and
the other, for the new value.
THE SURCHARGING
I was surprised to
see two kinds of new value, one with two zeroes after the decimal point
and the other with a dash instead, so I suggested that they keep an
accurate record of how many stamps were surcharged with each of the
two types. What I did not know then was that there were at least
seven
distinct types of the one with two zeroes, and two types with the dash.
It now appears that
each of the manually-produced rubber stamps was intentionally made
different. (Maybe this was to facilitate identification of the
work of each employee, I am not sure, as I was unable to get
definite answers to my queries.) They cannot even remember how
many rubber stamps were made and can no longer find any for me to
use for illustration purposes. I requested them to handstamp each
type on a clean piece of paper so that I can include the clear
impressions in my catalogue, but all they can find are the P10
rubber stamps, which have not been used yet. In fact, they claim
that there is only one type and all the different rubber stamps are
identical! This, even after I showed them the many disparities!
CONTROLLING THE
ISSUE
After they had
finished surcharging the 110,000 pieces of P3.60 Benigno Aquino
stamps, they decided to start the sale. In the afternoon of November
24, 2000, a Friday, sale of this stamp started without any prior
announcement. As recommended, they tried to control the sale. Only
three windows at the Manila Central Office were assigned to sell the
stamps. They were intended only for regular local mails, and no mint
copies were to be sold. These stamps were to be sold only to postal
patrons with ready-to-mail letters. Letters with these stamps will
be accepted by these three windows only. The tellers were even
encouraged to place the stamps on the letters, which should be left
at the windows, to be collected later in the day for processing as
usual.
Unfortunately, as
only very few collectors were aware that such an "exciting" stamp
would be issued, sales to collectors, who still had to prepare
covers for mailing, did not amount to much. Regular postal patrons
must have found the "regulations" too bothersome and many refused to
leave their letters at the windows, so sales were really slow.
Starting Saturday, the tellers decided to sell even mint copies,
disregarding the memo. Several collectors and dealers then took
advantage and used them on letters to be sent abroad, and on
registered letters, both local and foreign, all contrary to
regulations set.
PHILATELIC /
NON-PHILATELIC?
I had explained to
Postage Division personnel before that any stamp officially
overprinted and sold are needed in every Philippine collection. They
insisted that these are not philatelic stamps, but rather for
postage use only, so collectors should just ignore them and not
complain. They insisted they were only doing their jobs and in the
process, they are even helping Philpost make money out of obsolete
stamps! I also explained that if they proceed with their plan to
surcharge over a hundred different stamps to higher values, Philpost
will end up losing money instead. With so many different kinds, who
would know if a surcharged stamp is genuine or not? Unless they keep
a very accurate record of which stamps were surcharged, maybe they
themselves will not know. Anybody can just have rubber stamps made
and surcharge any low value, say 60¢ or less, to P5. Collectors and
dealers can surcharge all their low value stamps, especially if they
are from incomplete sets, damaged stamps, stamps without gum, badly
stained or simply unsaleable or uncollectible stamps. And in the
process, they can even create errors and varieties. Who will be the
wiser? Philpost ends up losing more revenue instead of making a
profit from this project. And this will also wreck havoc to
Philippine new issues, causing many collectors to shy away from our
stamps. No catalogue publisher will even want to touch these issues!
In the end, all of us lose!
They were, however,
not a bit convinced! They did not believe there are that many old
stamps out there which people can use to create their own
surcharges. And they even reasoned that since they use hard-to-find
and expensive red ink from the meter machines, that should be enough
of a deterrent already!
THE PROTESTS
When the chief of
the Philatelic Division learned about this, she prepared a letter of
protest. The International Philippine Philatelic
Society (IPPS) called for a special meeting the next day, and they also
voted to write an official letter to the PMG to denounce the sale of
such a stamp.
After receiving the
two letters of protest, PMG Rodriguez decided to suspend the sale of
the surcharges at around 11 a.m. of November 27, Monday. Therefore,
these stamps were officially on sale for only about two days
(Friday afternoon, Saturday and morning of Monday).
By the time the
stamps were withdrawn and put back into the vaults, 2,065 pieces
were sold, with maybe 2/3 in mint condition. Since the issuance was
not announced, only a few collectors prepared and posted covers,
making postally used (even those philatelically inspired) covers
very scarce. Furthermore, most of those posted on the first day of
sale (November 24, 2000) received a November 27 postmark, so
genuine "first day covers", especially those with proper backstamps,
are really rare!
SUSPENSION
When the sale of
the Aquino handstamped surcharge was suspended, further surcharging
of the other stamps was also stopped. By that time, the following 3
stamps were already surcharged in these quantities: P2.30 Abelardo
definitive of 1982 - 25,270 pieces; 60s Rizal's "Noli Me Tangere" of
1986 - 60,000 pieces, and, 75s Christmas stamp of 1988 - 20,000
pieces. These were sent back into the vaults, too.
As more collectors
learned about the unannounced issuance and sudden withdrawal of this
surcharge, there was a unanimous cry for the continued sale of the Aquino stamp. Since some collectors were able to buy even mint
stamps contrary to regulations, it had become speculative. This can,
in turn, only hurt Philippine philately. Many collectors complained
to the chief of the Philatelic Division, and some collectors even
sent letters to the PMG requesting that he put that particular stamp
back on sale (but to avoid approving the sale of the other three surcharged stamps). The PMG however, did not act on this matter
right away.
RE-ISSUANCE
When it was noted
that Scott's and Minkus had listed this stamp, which was also
reported in Linn's Stamp News, the chief of the Philatelic Division
wrote a letter to the PMG recommending the re-issuance of this
stamp. After over a month, the request was finally approved and the
stamps were put back on sale on December 27, 2001.
Twenty thousand (20,000) pieces of
the Aquino stamps were given to the Philatelic Division for sale to
collectors, and the balance (87,935) was sold at the windows of the
Manila Central Post Office (only). But since most collectors do not
like such "controversial" stamps, which they also find very "ugly
and messy", philatelic sales remained very, very poor. In fact, many
were later sold to big mailers for postage use. When the Internal
Audit Service (IAS) people recommended that the Philatelic Division
custodian return all her stocks of old stamps to the Postage
Division for subsequent distribution to the window tellers and
regional post offices for postage use, many of these surcharged
stamps were included, too. What most collectors failed to realize
was that the Aquino stamp, an unbelievable piece in this day and
age, is actually an extremely interesting
stamp. Since it was officially issued, it is needed in every
Philippine collection, and it will definitely be elusive in a few
years' time.
VARIETIES TO
COLLECT
What adds to the
fascination for specialists is the fact that there are at least nine
distinct varieties to collect! When the stamp was initially put on
sale in 2000, some collectors noticed that there are different sizes
of the surcharge. However, since so few were sold before they were
recalled and put back into the vaults, the complete picture was not
known until much later, when they were put back on sale.
In order to
document all the different types that may exist, and to later
publicize all the officially prepared types (so any new "finds"
later will be suspect), the entire stock of these surcharges
were examined before they were put back on sale. To our total
surprise and amazement, nine distinct types were identified.
Aside from the size
of the overall overprint, the shape of the peso sign and/or numerals
is different on each of these nine types. They can be identified most
conveniently and logically by the peso sign and new value. Although
there are long and short bars, uneven bars, rectangles and blocks in
place of the two bars, these deleting bars are terribly difficult to
differentiate, so it would be best not to use them as basis for
classifying. In fact, I would rather ignore the differences in the
deleting bars except when they are omitted.
Since the
surchargings were done manually by the many employees at the Postage
Division, the placement of the deleting bars, the new value and the
distance between the two vary a great deal. In fact, there is no
"normal" position. Some deleting bars are placed diagonally instead
of horizontally, and since the surcharges are done in two steps, a
number of errors are known. Some have the deleting bars omitted,
others have no new value. Some have the deleting bars doubled
because the first strike missed the old value. Others have doubled
or inverted new values, too. A few sheets even have two different
types of surcharges together! Another rubber stamp was used when the
employee resumed the surcharging after leaving part of the sheet
unfinished when she stopped. (They usually do the surcharging
during lunch break, and before or after office hours.)
The poor quality of
the manually-manufactured rubber stamps caused them to deteriorate
quickly, so impressions from a particular rubber stamp made later
are less distinct than those prepared earlier. The deterioration of
the rubber stamps for the two deleting bars caused later impressions
to become a rectangular or irregular block instead of two lines. Some
may even appear like they were done with a brush or other means, but
the ones who worked on them assured me only rubber stamps were used.
Obviously also, even if the same rubber stamp was used, the amount
of pressure used, angle of application and amount of ink picked-up,
all contributed to the different appearance of the surcharges.
TYPES OF SURCHARGES
Despite such a
scenario, we can still confidently identify at least nine types. (I
will give a brief description of each type, which I hope, will help
others to identify the stamps they have.)
Type I on cover with official
FDC Cancel
Type I.
With the largest P5.00 (12 1/2 mm. long), with a line across the
center “P” that extends out to both sides.
Type
II on cover with official FDC Cancel
Type II.
With the tall, narrow value (10 1/2 mm.), with 2 short lines on
either side of “P”.
Type
III on cover with official FDC Cancel
Type III.
11 1/2 mm. long, with three strokes (line or dot) at left of “P” and
with lower curve line of “P” open. There are two subtypes: one has the
horizontal stroke of “5” straight, the other has it curved upwards.
Type
IV on cover with official FDC Cancel
Type IV.
10 1/2 -11 mm. long, with two dots or lines at left of “P” plus
horizontal bar at foot (like in serif type). This type includes at
least three subtypes:
-
with top horizontal bar of “5” curved, slanted down towards
right, so very close to the egg shaped curve of lower part of
"5"
-
almost identical to previous one, but with top of first zero
open
-
top horizontal bar almost straight.
Type
V on cover with official FDC Cancel
Type V.
Smaller version of type IV, measuring only 10 mm., with the “5” and
two zeroes obviously smaller and shorter. This has two subtypes, too.
The first has the horizontal bar of “5” curved and the other
straight. Properly handstamped ones do not show any zero with top
open.
Type VI
on cover with official FDC Cancel
Type VI.
10 mm., with peso sign and numerals all uniform and straight
(looks sharp compared with others). There are also three strokes
(line or dot) at left of “P”, but the bottom one is not connected to
the end of the vertical stroke that extends out to both sides, like
with Types IV and V. It appears very near the edge of the vertical
stroke, with some actually joined with the edge, but it does not
cross over to the right. There seems to be two subtypes, too: one
with very thin lines, and the other, thick; but this could be due
only to differences in pressure used and/or the amount of ink
applied.
Type VII
on cover with official FDC Cancel
Type VII.
The smallest overprint at 8 1/2 mm. only. With a line or dot to the
left of the vertical stroke of “P” near the center. The most notable
feature is the "foot" of "P", which is an extension of the vertical
stroke that goes to the right, creating an “L".
Type VIII
on cover with official FDC Cancel
Type VIII.
With a dash instead of two zeroes after the decimal point. 10 1/2 mm.
long and 3 mm. in height. The “P” have extensions of upper and lower
strokes of the curve line to the left of the vertical stroke. It has
a short horizontal line in the middle of the half circle of the “P”.
 
Type IX on cover with official
FDC Cancel
Type IX.
Also with a dash, but much larger, measuring 11 mm. long and 4 mm.
in height. The lower stroke of the curve line of “P” does not extend
beyond the vertical stroke, but the horizontal line in the middle of
the half circle extends out to the left of the vertical stroke. With
all the lines so thick, the whole upper half of “P” appears like a
solid half circle. Also, the top horizontal bar of “5” is very close
to the upper curve so most will show the left side joined already.
Types VIII & IX
were used initially, but discontinued and later used mostly on the
other three stamps being overprinted. Only three sheets of Type VIII and
nine
sheets of Type IX were prepared. The ones who did the surcharging
did not believe that these two types were used on the Aquino stamp.
They insisted that the one with the dash was used on the three other
stamps only. Later though, one of them remembered that they started
with this, but decided to use only the one with two zeroes after a few
sheets were done. Since all the stamps they requisitioned are
accountable, they cannot just be set aside. They simply had to
include every sheet, even these "trial sheets" and those with
errors. They honestly believed that such stamps were not collectible
and were for postage use only.
Types V and VI were
never included in the stock of the Philatelic Division and they sold
out quickly at the windows, so most collectors missed these.
Only about fifty
sheets of Type II were prepared, but they were all in the Philatelic
Division stock, so many collectors got this scarce variety.
FIRST
DAY COVERS
November 24, 2000
covers are considered the official FDCs and are very RARE.
Very few collectors were aware of this date, which is a Friday.
When they learned about it, they went to the next best date that
they can have covers cancelled - which is November 27, a Monday,
before the stamps were withdrawn.
FDC -
Single, Postmarked
Nov. 24, 2000 and backstamped Nov. 24, 2000
FDCs with November 24, 2000 backstamps are considered RARE as most
have a November 27 backstamp.
FDC - B/4. Priority Mail
postmarked Nov. 24, 2000
November 27, 2000 covers posted
before stamps were withdrawn
Pair. Priority Mail, postmarked and backstamped Nov.
27, 2000
Pair. Priority Mail, postmarked Nov.
27, 2000 & backstamped Nov. 28, 2000
With Error Stamps - Undeleted "P3.60"
Pair. postmarked Nov.
27, 2000
With Error Stamp (first of the pair) - Double Surcharge, One Shifted
Down
Single . postmarked Nov.
29, 2000
With Error Stamp - Double Surcharge, One Shifted Down
.jpg)
Single, with TB Seal, postmarked Nov. 28, 2000 and backstamped Nov.
29, 2000
OFFICIAL FDC
CANCEL DATED NOVEMBER 24, 2000 MADE AVAILABLE IN 2002
Due to the fact
that the Philatelic Division was not informed about this issue, no
official first day covers nor bulletins were prepared when the
stamps were initially issued in November 2000. Of course, when sale
was suspended, such plans were also shelved. When sales resumed,
there were plans for official cacheted FDCs and at least a
mimeographed bulletin, but somehow, they were delayed for too long.
The first day cover envelopes were not ready by the end of April
2002, so the order was finally CANCELLED as it was already way past
both "dates of issue" (November 24, 2000 or December 27, 2001),
and very few collectors seemed interested even with the mint stamps.
However, as far as
an official First Day Cover canceller is concerned, one was made
available. The first day cancel, dated "November 24, 2000",
was made available starting from February 2002, but only a few
collectors and dealers prepared FDCs on blank envelopes. Only very
few FDCs exist with this official FDC canceller, as the canceller
was available for a limited time only.
ERRORS, FREAKS & ODDITIES
The following are
some of the known EFOs, on covers with official FDC cancels:
Vertical Strip of 3, Type I.
Middle stamp with deleting bars omitted
Horizontal Pair, Type I.
Right stamp with new value (P5.00) omitted
Single, Type I. With Double
Surcharge
Vertical Pair, Type III.
Lower stamp with new value (P5.00) Omitted
Vertical pair, Type IV.
Upper stamp with Double Surcharge
Single, Type IV. With
Deleting Bars Doubled
Vertical Pair, Type IV.
Upper stamp with new value (P5.00) Omitted
Single, Type IV. New value
(P5.00) very far to right and slanted
Horizontal pair, Type V.
Right stamp with deleting bars omitted
Vertical pair, Type V. Upper
stamp with Double Surcharge
Horizontal pair, Type VI.
Right stamp with new value (P5.00) omitted
Single, Type VII. With
Deleting Bars Omitted and new value (P5.00) very far to the Right
than Usual
Horizontal pair, Type VII.
Right stamp with new value (P5.00) omitted
IN CONCLUSION....
All in all, this
particular surcharged stamp is really one big nightmare, albeit,
truth to be told, to a few of us, it is one of the most exciting and
interesting stamps to come about in recent years. Let us just hope
no other similar stamps will ever be approved for issuance by any
PMG in the future.
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