Majority of the 1947 - 1957 Philippine stamp
issues were printed by The American Bank Note Company, New York. In the
late 1980s, the ABN liquidated its archives in an auction and a French
dealer obtained the "Philippine" lot. A few years later, a local collector
was lucky enough to chance upon the dealer and purchased several sets of
the specimens minus some topical issues which the dealer had already sold.
Missing from this collection are the following issues (Scott catalog numbers)
-
1948 JOSE RIZAL BOOKLET PANE (#527a, only 10 panes
known)
-
1948 GEN. DOUGLAS MACARTHUR COMMEMORATIVE (#519
- 521)
-
1949 UPU 75th ANNIVERSARY SOUVENIR SHEET (#534)
-
1950 AFF SILVER JUBILEE SOUVENIR SHEET (#C70)
-
1950 LIONS INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION (#545-546,
C71-72 and C72a)
-
1952 FRUIT TREE MEMORIAL FUND SEMI-POSTALS (B6-7)
ABN Records indicate that for special issues
only one sheet of 50 per value was produced and two sheets of 100 each
per value and per printing produced for definitive and official issues.
Information obtained from the French dealer indicate that when obtained
the specimen lot majority of the issues were not in complete sheets and
/ or in complete sets. Likewise, only 10 souvenir sheets per was produced.
Also part of the ABC specimen collection is the unissued 1953 SUKARNO STATE
VISIT souvenir sheet of which only 5 were made.
In order to complete the set we are in contact
with thematic collectors who were lucky enough to purchase the above missing
issues. To date, we have already received commitments for images of the
Rizal booklet pane and two of the souvenir sheets. Most likely the waiting
for the MacArthur and Lions issues will be much longer.
Thank you.
Abraham Luspo, Jr.
Manila, Philippines
|
