ND Home > ND Libraries > Spec. Coll. > Collections > Wolf Irish Stamps > Part II > Set 11T
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ND Home > ND Libraries > Spec. Coll. > Collections > Wolf Irish Stamps > Part II > Set 11T |
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T66 (77) 2/6 brown [MID] [LAR (det)] |
T67 (78) 3s carmine [MID] [LAR] |
T68 (79) 10s blue [MID] [LAR] |
Design: Great Britain issue of 1919, Scott 179 (T66), 180 (T67), 181 (T68): "Britannia Rules the Waves," designed by Sir Bertram MacKennal. This issue is the type of 1913, retouched (generally evidenced by the dot above the middle of the top frame on each value).
Printing (Base Stamps): Engraving; Bradbury, Wilkinson and Co., London, printed in sheets of forty subjects (4 x 10).
Overprint: "Saorstát Éireann 1922" (Irish Free State 1922), in three lines, by the Government Printing Works, Dublin, and (from February 1926) by the British Board of Inland Revenue, Somerset House, London. Overprints are a dull or shiny black, and most commonly measure 15 x 8.5 mm. Standard widths of individual lines are as follows: Saorstát - 15 mm; Éireann - 13 mm; 1922 - 5.5 mm. The sheets of forty base stamps were overprinted by a setting of twenty cliches arranged in five rows of four. Each row was separated from the next by the height of two stamps, so that two printing operations were required, with the overprinting of rows in the second operation falling between those of the first.
Separation: Perf. 11 x 12.
Watermark: Monogram Royal Cypher (Scott wmk. 34: Large Crown and GvR).
Date of Issue: August 1925
Estimated Numbers Issued: Unknown.
Notes: The overprinting of British stamps was discontinued as each value of the new permanent
series of Irish definitives was made available. For the low values (up to 1s) this occurred over the course
of 1922-23; for the high values (2s6d, 5s, 10s), it did not occur until 1937. Thus, while no low values
were overprinted after 1923 (excepting coils), British "seahorses" continued to be overprinted for years, so that a high
value series could be maintained on general sale. As of 5 June 1925, the contract for doing this work
passed from Alexander Thom to the Government Printing Office in Dublin Castle.
The four distinct high value overprint issues that appeared in 1925, 1927, and 1935 were long known as the
Castle overprints, after what was believed to be their point of origin at the Government Printing Office. It
is now generally believed that only the first of these issues (set 10T) was ever printed in Dublin, and that
from February 1926 the work was carried out in London at British insistence. Thus, sheets of set 10T were
overprinted by both the Irish and the British postal authorities - though the stamps continue to be regarded
as one rather than two sets, given the apparent use of the Irish overprint plates by the British.
The most important concern in distinguishing the various "Castle" overprint issues from one another is the
width of the date. The stamps of set 11T feature the so-called narrow date, best measured at 5.5 mm (across
the bottom of the numerals, disregarding the serif of the "1"). This contasts noticeably with the "wide" date
on the Thom three-line overprints of 1922 (9T), which measures 6.25 mm (MacDonnell Whyte gives the wide and narrow
measurements as 6 mm and 5 mm, respectively). The overprint ink used on set 11T is black, contrasting with the
blue-black of the 9T high values.
Provenance: Dr. Charles Wolf (all).
Bibliography: Meredith 1927, 12-13; Rang 1958, 351; EPA 1965, 85-86; Feldman 1968, 51-53; Foley 1975, 3-5; Dulin and Williams 1978, 48; Dulin 1992, 42-44; Whyte 1994, 8.
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