St. Pierre Miquelon… for stamp collectors it offers a heritage of bootleggers, Nazi sympathizers and fascinating postage stamps.

Virtually all of the whiskey that bootleggers smuggled into America’s east coast ports from “Rumrunner’s Row” spent time in warehouses on a small group of islands located off Newfoundland.  A little known outpost of the French Empire found itself, by virtue of geography, quenching America’s thirst for spirits during prohibition.

St. Pierre & Miquelon issued its first stamps in 1885 with an overprint that, because of its type face, looks more appropriate for a German stamp. These overprints continued for six years until the colony’s first stamps, the French colonial “Navigation and Commerce” issue was released.

In 1892, an interesting set of stamps was released.   The “Commerce” issue of the French Colonies, issued in the 1880s, was both surcharged and overprinted.    French Colonies stamps were used between 1859-1906 and once again between 1943-45 for colonies which did not have stamps of their own.

The 25 cent denomination of the “Commerce” issue is particularly noteworthy… it was reissued in 1886 with a different color, black ink on a rose colored paper.   It was previously, when first issued, a yellow stamp.

I have a small stock of this St. Pierre Miquelon stamp in my store if you would like to add a copy to your collection.

The islands were onboard the French Colony omnibus bandwagon issuing the 1931 Colonial Exposition, 1937 Paris International Exposition and Colonial Arts Exhibition sets and in 1939 the New York World’s fair set.   This World’s Fair set is one of the many stamps caught up in the philatelic intrigue of the Second World War.

The fall of France set the stage for the Vichy government taking control.   But the proximity of the islands to shipping lanes, Canada and the United States helped kindle a Free French overthrow of the Vichy which began with a submarine landing troops on Christmas Eve, 1941.

Free French stamps were issued in small quantities.   In an effort to quickly raise much needed cash the services of a raffish Montreal reporter to sell special overprints to speculators were retained.   Many of these stamps were woefully under priced.   Stamps worth fifty to sixty thousand dollars on the philatelic market were sold for seven thousand.

The overprint rage was in full bloom.   The creations included an air post semi postal stamp with proceeds earmarked for children’s health and as best we can determine, none actually made it to the island’s post offices.

Most stamp dealers never made it to Saint Pierre Miquelon.   A number of them journeyed from New York to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where they waited for permits to embark for St. Pierre so they could buy a stock of high demand treasures from the post office.   But military officials didn’t want outsiders and none of the dealers made it to the islands.

The stamps chosen for the numerous overprints dated back to 1925.   But this was a short-lived run.   A philatelic scandal erupted.   The Montreal reporter who helped engineer the project wound up in a Canadian jail.   The provisionals were replaced by the schooner issue printed in London.

But many stamps were not overprinted and could be found on sale in the St. Pierre post office after the war.   In 1948 some of the 1938-40 series was still on sale.

The airmail stamps placed on sale in 1942 were slightly ahead of their time… the first airmail service didn’t actually launch until 1948.

In the fifties a number of high value airmails were issued.   The production of St. Pierre’s stamps for the past fifty years has by and large been of exceptional quality, prized by most stamp collectors.

In February, 1954 many of the world’s stamp dealers converged on Cairo.  The military government which had ousted King Farouk two years earlier had retained the London firm of H.R. Harmer to auction off his extensive postage stamp holdings.

While the frequently ill-mannered Farouk caroused in Europe, his massive holdings of stamps were put on the block.  The first few days of the auction were not well-attended.  But when European dealers arrived prices were driven up by demand for the material.

Many of the postage stamps sold were seen for the first time.  Unlike the so-called errors that unscrupulous governments often churn out deliberately, these Egyptian errors were authentic.

One of the stamp dealers at this auction was Canada’s Kasimir Bileski from Winnipeg, Manitoba.

The various errors and varieties that turned up, did so legitimately during the printing of the stamps.  They were never put on the market or offered for sale to anyone at fancy prices.  In fact, the last thing anyone expected was that such ever would be available to collectors.  Their very existence was unknown.

Today, many Egypt collectors have stamps from this historic auction, which have been certified as being in King Farouk’s collection.  The King had a particular fondness for rare color overprints.

He also had an obsessive fondness for food… it was not unusual for Farouk to have a dozen eggs for breakfast.  Foul, misogynous and unbalanced, he was not cut out for leadership.

But King Farouk loved his postage stamps, spent a lot of time with his collection, and from 1936-52 ran the Egyptian Post Office as his personal philatelic fiefdom.

A sour note followed the auction.  The military dictators never paid the fees and commissions due to H.R. Harmer.

You may have a tough time identifying this stamp.  Don’t feel badly,  because following World War I the Allied Powers had a tough time figuring out what to do with the country it comes from.

The stamp is from Memel, originally part of Prussia but heavily Lithuanian.

Following the war,  Memel was detached from Germany and administered by the French.  But this arrangement fell apart in less than three years.  During this time Memel never had stamps of its own but relied on overprints first of German, then French and finally Lithuanian stamps.

The stamp features a Lithuanian overprint.  Originally an Offical stamp it was never actually released until it took on this overprint.  The “Klaipeda” refers to both an alternate name used for Memel and a port city on the Baltic.

If you would like to add a copy of this fascinating stamp to your collection, I have a limited stock.

Klaipeda was seized by the Nazis in March, 1939.