By A.M.T. Cheung FRPSL
Two such QV stamps came to light recently. The ovpt. was typographed and on the 2¢ yellow-brown wmk. CC is facing left and the 12¢ light blue wmk. CC facing right. Neither Webb/HKSC Vol. 1 nor Ming Tsang recorded such ovpt.
Our member Charles Chan points out that "Service" implies usage by the British Forces residing in Hong Kong and 2¢ was the 1d soldier's rate and 12¢ was the 6d officer's rate via Southampton effective from February 1861 to 31 December 1869.
Sailors and Naval Officers used British stamps to prepay their letters and the stamps were either cancelled by P&O mail boat obliterators such as A81, A83 etc. in transit. However, most of the stamps on letters were cancelled on arrival back in England since they were posted in special bag.
The land forces, however, had to use Hong Kong stamps to prepay their letters and examples on covers have been recorded. If the land forces had a postage allowance for sending letters home, stamps were of course distributed to them free. Clearly, the authority might want to mark the stamps in order to prevent them being sold to the public. One way is to overprint them with the word "Service" or "Army" etc. Thus it is just possible that the 2¢ and the 12¢ were overprinted for such purpose. There is a chance that the 8¢ orange was overprinted in similar fashion since it was used to make up the 10d via Marseilles officer rate and the 4d registration fee.
Mr. M. Goldsmith of the Hong Kong Study Circle, England commented that the typographic ovpt. is similar to the type used in India for their SERVICE stamps. He also said that SERVICE stamps could be used on Official correspondence, however, he believes that it is highly unlikely that Hong Kong needed such stamps in those days because being a small place, official correspondence could easily be carried by government courier instead of relying on the post office. Hence, he believes that the subject ovpt. on stamps are most likely bogus. But, if a genuine cover turns up......
Has any one got examples overprinted on other QV denominations and particularly on cover?
Acknowledgement:
Part of this article was published in the March 2000 HKPS newsletter
