Far away places with strange sounding names.

The Tokelau Islands
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Postal services stretches all around the world with many stamps coming from some remote regions which remind me of adventure stories, some being fictional whilst others are based on facts such as, Robinson Crusoe, Treasure Island and Mutiny on the Bounty (Pitcairn Island) etc.

Here is a group of Islands that geographically speaking is also remote, being that of the TOKELAU ISLANDS that is roughly halfway between Auckland in New Zealand (2104 miles) and Honolulu in Hawaii (2282 miles) and from a census taken in 2020 the Islands consist of a total population of 1357.

There are three main Islands in the group comprising of, from north to south > ATAFU, NUKUNONU and FAKAOFO with a combined area of only 4 square miles. On the 1st of January 1949 they became a dependent territory of the sovereign state of New Zealand and stamps used have been previously overprinted with the islands name on stamps of New Zealand.

Here is such a postal fiscal stamp being part of a set of three values 6d,8d and 2/- issued in 1966 and later replaced on the 10th of July 1967 due to a change to decimal currency approximately a year later.



These stamps only had a very short lifetime and could not be used after decimal currency had been introduced, therefore a used stamp is going to be much scarcer than its mint equivalent, you can purchase the mint ones by the sheet lode, but not so the more elusive used ones.

Add to the fact that the stamps above appear to have been printed in two different shades, which could be a bonus !

I have recently been in contact with Mr Michael Wilkinson of the New Zealand Philatelic Society of Great Britain and he has provided me with information for a further educational understanding of this particular issue.

Firstly he informed me that these stamps are not postal fiscal's as originally thought, but actual postage stamps printed as a stop-gap due to the postal rate changes made around that time.

Secondly it appears that 3 printings was made of these stamps, prior to being replaced by the decimal currency values on the 10th of July 1967.

The following information was provided by Mr Michael Wilkinson from extracts of The Postage Stamps of New Zealand by the Royal Philatelic Society of New Zealand to whom all credits and acknowledgements must go >





Based on these facts I can now show you the 1st printing as both blocks of 4 have been cancelled with the 1st day of issue being the 8th of November 1966.



With regard to the 3rd printing issued on 20th March 1967, the remainder of the stamps were destroyed at Apia (Samoa) after the decimal replacements was issued on the 10th of July 1967, this possibly makes the third printing a much scarcer example than the first two printings, the following list gives how many was destroyed after decimalisation >

6d 35,360

8d 34,400

2/- 35,280

Finding a used stamp can be beneficial but not always conclusive in discovering which printing the stamp came from.

I have always preferred to collect fine used stamps from the more remote areas of the world rather than the mint versions as they are less abundant in many cases and can give additional information for the keen collector.

After reading the information provided, I decided to inspect the other two values and could find very little difference in the shades of ink used, although the later 2/- appeared to be slightly darker as with the 6d value.



What was noticeable was that the surcharge on the later printings appeared to be much bolder than the first printing, especially on the value section.



Based on the dated cancellations, I presume that the later 3rd printing on the 20th March 1967 can be defined by the heavier impression of the surcharge as against the first printing on the 8th of November 1966.