Dubious Jubilees

Some Jubilee-associated issues hide a variety of motives. Such unauthorized manifestations should not be dismissed out of hand since they form part of philatelic history; are often of more interest than the genuine articles; and frequently command a higher value.

Bogus Overprints

Tristan da Cunha did not participate with its own stamps for the Silver Jubilee. Instead, it used those of other territories - principally Great Britain. The examples shown below, though professionally overprinted at the instigation of the Rev. Harold Wilde, the island’s administrator, are certainly not part of an official issue.

With “Tristan da Cunha” printed at the top of the stamp, there appears at the bottom, for an as yet unexplained reason, a serial number that is different for each stamp. From these, it has been estimated that there exist just over thirty examples for each of the halfpenny and penny denominations - most of which have yet to come to light. His Reverence appears to have given away some of these stamps to acquaintances as tokens of appreciation.

Propaganda Parody

In 1944, the Nazi regime in Germany produced parodies of several British stamps. It was thought that they were instigated by Himmler on seeing parodies of the German 6 pf. stamp on which appeared Himmler instead of Hitler.

The job of producing the “stamps” was given to Major Bernard Kruger of a specialised section of the counter-espionage department of the Gestapo in Berlin. He normally dealt with forged documents.

The work was carried out at Sachsenhausen concentration camp at Orienburg and the best engravers and typographers - nearly all Jewish - were enlisted.

Distribution was intended to be by Luftwaffe drops over troop concentrations and the larger towns of England but nearly all the stock remained undistributed.