NZ Great Barrier Island Pigeon Post

VP 4 the Pigeon Gram

VP4 was actually the 7th Pigeongram stamp issued, the day after the first Marotiri overprint which was overprinted on the Blue green SPECIAL POST.  The design was pretty much the same as VP2 but with the words SPECIAL POST replaced by the words PIGEON GRAM.  The printing was done in more of a light blue colour and on poor quality paper with a buff colour (no watermark).  However the whole production process had to be repeated and so 6 carvings were used to prepare 6 moulds in wax in which copper electrolytes were made.

This time the printing plate was three across and two deep, and each plate was impressed twice on to the paper creating sheets of 12.






For the train spotters (like me) each impression can be identified.  Below are some images sliced and diced from Te Papa of impressions made from the plates which are held by the Canterbury Museum.  The comments are some wise words from Reg Walker.


Type 1:  The two lines above 'A' of 'GRAM' are joined.





Type 2:  There is a white mark over 'S' of 'SHILLING' at right.





Type 3: The white vertical line at extreme left almost runs into the left edge at top.





Type 4: The centre 'A' of 'GREAT' is clear





Type 5:  Electro 5 has none of the other identifications





Type 6:  There is a flaw on 'G' of 'GREAT'

Marotiri Mining Syndicate

Further up the East Coast of NZ is a group of islands we call the Hen & Chickens.  The Maori name for the biggest island is Marotiri.  In 1899 a mining syndicate began work on the island and Mr Howie was approached to provide a pigeon service.  He agreed and ran some trials pre stamps, which were successful.  

The suggested volume of pigeon grams indicated that the service could sustain its own stamp, and so it was decided to produce some additional copies of VP2 and then overprint them 'MAROTIRI Pigeongram' in two lines, with 'Pigeongram' again cancelling out the words 'SPECIAL POST' and Marotiri cancelling out Great Barrier.  This stamp is known as VP5.
 
VP5 were also printed in sheets of 12 like VP4, different from the 24 stamp sheet printing of the original VP2.  The perfs were also different coming down from 12^1/2 to 11^1/2 - 12.

Why were more VP2 stamps printed and then overprinted?  It was suggested that remaining stocks were running low but there were many of the VP2 stamps unaccounted for (over 3,000) and VP4 was also in production (It was issued the day after these!).  More questions arose as the paper being used for these and VP4 was different - and yet being printed by same folks - Wilson & Horton.  

Only 20 sheets were printed - 240 stamps. 

These are rare unused and very rare used on piece.  They are incredibly under catalogued for what they are.  

In any case they were issued on 24 August 1899, the day before VP4 and six weeks after the Agencies stamps.  Here are some images, sadly none of which are from my own collection! 











VP5 Forgery Alert


The complete sheet existing is important.  I have recently seen a copy of the Marotiri overprint where the alignment is different, in that the word 'Pigeongram' is more to the left than the word 'MAROTIRI'.  We can clearly see from the sheet that there is no such stamp.  Because of this observation, one tends to have a closer inspection and can see that the font of the overprint is not 100% the same either.  I'll try and get an image up   


Buyer beware, this is a fake and where there is one there will be others.

VP6 Marotiri Red

For many this is the iconic Pigeon Post stamp, and yet it is not Great Barrier!  It's iconic because of its bright colour and the fact that used on piece it is the most rare of all Pigeon Post stamps.  In fact there is only one known.  And it's not in my collection. 

Mr. Bolitho asked Mr. Richardson to develop a new design and this is what he came up with.  A flying pigeon with a letter in its beak.  The production process was similar with a wooden block created, wax impressions made and copper electrolytes manufactured. The sheets were 2 x 6 with a 111/2-12 perf.

100 sheets were printed - I know you can do the maths. That's 600 stamps. These are catalogued at a ridiculously low price mint. The stamps were issues on 15 September 1899 and were only used a few times.  The copper syndicate didn't really hit their payload on Marotiri and so the pigeon post service was ceased in early 1900.  No-one knows the exact date.

This is a block from my collection.  Please note, the image is a good quality one, and no your eyes are not playing tricks after a few whiskies last night - the top two stamps appear to have a double strike and so make the image blurry.  However there was only one strike in the printing.  It is thought that there was a double strike on the wax when making the plates and so every sheet looks the same.     






The only flimsy known to exist.






There are other used copies of the stamp, and some images are shown below.  The first two are considered genuine, but the third is considered suspect.  You can see the end of the word 'Cancelled' but this is not known to have been used.  However given the strange circumstances surrounding the stamps and their history nothing can be known for sure.  There is a fourth used copy which I have seen, which has a violet circular stamp on it.  This is considered by me to be a fake. This cancellation is very similar to the VP1 forgeries with cancellations.  Buyer beware!

VP8 Essay (not forgery).

There was once much hoo-ha about a forgery of the VP8.  The theories that abounded were in retrospect (as always) quite outrageous.  

The two stamps below show the obvious VP8 as used on partial, while the other is a rather poor copy of the 'forgery' held in the dungeons of Te Papa Museum of New Zealand.  Only it's not - it's an essay - or in simple terms a design that was not progressed.  


When this item first came to be noticed it was suggested that the obviously American forger didn't know the symbol for shilling 1/- so used an 'S'.  He must have been some voyeur to copy a stamp he hadn't seen I reckon   because obviously he would have seen the 1/- and just copied it.  There were other theories but actually this is just an essay of a design.

POP QUIZ!

Ok to test your assimilation of the content of this thread, what do you notice about this item and what's your deduction?

Here is the 3rd item shown by Neil :



and here it is using Retroreveal :




and highlighting what I see there :



Make of it what you will, although as Neil stated, not a '5' but an 'E' with an 'O' overlapped.



Dave

Nice workDave.  I don't think the yellow o connects - I think it's a 'C' and the third yellow figure to left shows the beginning fingers of the 'E' hence my thinking git was same postmark but reversed and turned upside down.  I do believe it's a fake.  

Just on that point, I have just read something interesting and so would like to note that some (including Reg Walker) use the words Forgery and Counterfeit not as synonyms but to have different meanings.  A Counterfeit stamp is designed to fool a stamp collector whilst a Forged stamp is designed to fool the Postal service and get free postage.  Interesting - I may need to go back through and edit this thread!

Great work Dave
Using Retro-reveal does make it obvious.
Cheers Grant

Yup.

Good 'ole "supply & demand"
Buy 'em up while you can. There are not that many around really.


To make us see the 8 types that are available more clearly than the pics Rod posted from the ACS simplified catalog (above) I thought that I would mock up a composite of the 8 types - VP1 to VP8.



and the quantity printed of each:

• VP 1 - 1800
• VP 2 - 4,800 (less 960 for below issue)
• VP 3 - 960 of the above stamp of which only 160 were used. Most of the remaining 800 were damaged and discarded - some to collectors.
  
• VP 4 - 4,650
  
• VP 5 - 240
  
• VP 6 - 600
  
• VP 7 - 10,000
  
• VP 8 - 5,000

Dave

The Postmarks

Rod222's post with the postmark examples prompts me to share all of the known postmarks.  There were more postmarks than you would think for such a small amount of mail.  The images below give us a good base view of the postmarks used by the Original Pigeongram Service.


Postmark 1.








Postmark 2.

  





Postmark 3.









Postmark 4.  

 





Postmark 5.







Postmark 6. 

 







The two additional postmarks below were not recorded by Reg Walker or by Te Papa Museum.  What conclusion can we come to about the first?  The Marotiri stamp either identifies that normal P'SPECIAL POST' stamps were used from Marotiri before their stamps were ready (most likely option) or that the Marotiri Syndicate sponsored all Service pigeon grams for a period.


Of note also is that some stamps were not postmarked at all but were annotated by pen with date.

Oh that's good that I got that 1st part right -
but thinking about the 6d to Auckland from the Barrier & 1/- for the trip back to the Barrier part - that is for the 'Agency's stamps only then? As all of the ones from VP1 to VP6 are for 1/- values only!
Is this the 'Agency's' competition beginning to lower the rates?



Dave

The Mount Cook Pigeon Post
R.D. Samuel
"The Captain Coqk" Number 508, April 1992
Volume 20 Number 3
Page 31

How interesting neilmac

Did these services include stamps or labels to show payment for the service or were these purely 'in-house' services for their respective businesses?

NB: Seeing Mr Phipps's occupation, I wouldn't want to be a poorly performing pigeon in his loft!! lol



Dave

The great misnomer is that Great Barrier pigeon Post were the first.  They weren't by a long shot.  They were the first with stamps.  

Pigeon post was used reasonably extensively in mining NZ.  Fricker himself had been sending pigeon grams for nearly a decade before Great Barrier from the Waihi area.  Others too.   Here's another example - these from Ohinemuri - just down the road from where I live.

Neil Climie writes in the 1983 Ohinemuri Regional History Journal...

"In 1964 when our "Ohinemuri Regional History Journal" was in its infancy, I spent many hours in the Thames Library perusing early copies of the "Thames Advertiser", gleaning information about our "beginnings". Unfortunately there are now no spare copies of Journal 2 (October 1964), but in it we featured press messages in connection with the Opening of the Karangahake Goldfield many of which were per "Pigeon Express".

EXAMPLE - 23 January 1875.

"There are about 40 diggers here at the Paeroa Camp. Dan Sealey and 9 others are out. Mr. Thorp, Johnny Beeche and Mr. Bennett have an interest in a Reef. Mr. Skidmore is just in and reports well of the creeks. The Maoris are very friendly. Their potato crop is good and they are now getting in their wheat. An experienced miner warns that Ohinemuri will never be a poor man's diggings. Capital will be needed for development".

EXAMPLE - 2 MARCH 1875

"Landing at the Puke, I struck out for the Paeroa. Everybody had a swag but me, and I carried a box with two gentle doves. I found the Paeroa pretty lively and learned what had already taken place. My mate had just ridden in from the Karangahake ridge. Writing a pigeongram from his dictation, I threw up one of my birds and had the pleasure of seeing it go off like a dart for Thames".

EXAMPLE - 3 MARCH 1875 - 9-20 a.m.

"I started this morning for the Prospectors' Claim. From this spur, the Warden's Marquee can be seen and the crowd around ... 10-20 a.m. Men pegging ... Mr. Adam Porter the first man up here where I am.... Shall now send off my pigeon and return to Mackaytown".

There were, of course, many more messages, for which, the Reporter, Joshua Jackson, became famous.

The 1900 Cyclopaedia of New Zealand tells us:

"Joshua Jackson arrived at Thames from England in 1869 and after a little practical experience in mining, became a Special Correspondent, reporting on the fields in this area. He was interested in the original "Woodstock" and floated the "Crown". His excellent descriptions of Karangahake and Waitekauri have had the value of standard works for the colony".

No doubt his messages were written on less elegant paper than the famous "Flimsys" from Great Barrier 20 years later, but they were wonderfully efficient.