Tuesday, April 3, 2012

April Fool


RB20 with GUAM overprint

As some of you might have read, on April Fools Day I posted this stamp with a claim that it was issued for taxes on betel nuts on the island of Guam.  As many expected, the story is not true!

Two years ago I purchased a lot of battleship stamps with handstamp cancels and included in the bunch was this odd copy of RB20.  I put it aside as a poorly made fraud but curiosity got the better of me eventually and I decided to check out the Scott Catalogue just to see if the USG made anything that might have looked like this stamp.  As there is nothing listed, I continue to figure the stamp is nothing more than a curiosity made by a stamp collector.

But with last year's April 1 post on Teddy Roosevelt's indian canoe stamp such a hit for this site, I thought the Guam stamp could be used for an equally plausible yet absurd story.  I am curious to know whether there might be more stamps like this out there.  Do you have one, and maybe on a denomination other than an RB20?  If so, please write to 1898revenues@gmail.com.

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