On Tuesday 5th November, Banbury Stamp Society were hosts to a visit by High Wycombe Philatelic Society. High Wycombe were represented by Tim Harrison who presented displays on two separate and very different subjects.
Tim’s first presentation focused upon the postage stamps of Iceland during the period when Denmark and Iceland were linked politically and by a common adherence to the Danish King.
In 1852, Denmark organised a postal service for Iceland. In this early period Danish stamps were used in Iceland. Letters from this period are very rare with only six examples known to exist. However, from 1873 stamps were produced for use solely in Iceland. These stamps closely followed Denmark in style and content. Tim described early Icelandic stamps as “sludgy” reflecting the fact that early printings were often indistinct, rather drab and badly perforated.
Political separation from Denmark in 1918 produced a more varied stamp issuing programme centering upon the 1930 issue commemorating the 1000th anniversary of the establishment of the Icelandic Parliament. Some stamps commemorating this event were produced in Vienna by the “Friends of Iceland” a group which offered to produce stamps for Iceland. The group however swindled the Icelandic government out of significant sums of money. A court case to resolve the issue was however prevented by the outbreak of war in 1939. The stamps are however rather attractive.
In 1944, whilst Denmark was under Nazi occupation Iceland decided to cut ties with the Danish state and became a republic, an even celebrated by the issuing of six stamps featuring Jon Sigurdsson an Icelandic national hero whose birthday is celebrated as Iceland’s national day.
During the second half of the evening, Tim entertained us with something completely different, a display of the fiscal stamps of Greece and their uses. This was something never seen before by Banbury Stamp Society which is not wholly surprising as Tim advised that there are only about two collectors of this material in the United Kingdom.
Tim explained that Greece won her independence from Turkey in 1830 but from the outset the new state was nearly bankrupt. The need to raise revenue caused the state to tax virtually every aspect of public life and to show that the tax had been paid specially printed revenue stamps were attached to documents and products. This resulted in a huge variety of fiscal stamps being produced, each for the relevant tax. For example, in order to be sold all books had to have paid the book tax. The attachment of stamps to the first page of the book was evidence that the tax had been paid. This approach also applied to legal documents, tickets for boats or ferries, school certificates etc.
In addition, municipalities and professions required stamps to be attached to their documents to pay for the upkeep of buildings or for pensions for lawyers, bricklayers, sailors, police officers, the clergy and many other groups. All in all, a most unusual and entertaining display which was enjoyed by all.