Great Barrier Pigeongram:
VP 5 - "Marotiri Overprint"
Great Barrier Pigeon Post
1898 - 1904
VP 5 - The 'Marotiri' Overprint
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Marotiri Mining Syndicate
Further up the East Coast of NZ is a group of islands called the Hen and Chickens. The largest island in this group (Hen Is.) is called Taranga. The group of smaller islands to the north of Taranga were collectively known as Marotiri or Marotere Islands as the largest of this group was individually called the same. This would now be Lady Alice Island, though the Maori name for Lady Alice is also given as Motumuka.
The island now called Coppermine Island where the mining took place is at the eastern end of the group and the smaller of the three main islands in the Chickens. In 1899 a mining syndicate began work on the island and Mr Howie was approached to provide a pigeon service. He agreed and ran some trials pre stamps, which were successful.
The suggested volume of pigeon grams indicated that the service could sustain its own stamp, and so it was decided to produce some additional copies of VP 2 and then overprint them 'MAROTIRI Pigeongram' in two lines, with 'Pigeongram' again cancelling out the words 'SPECIAL POST' and MAROTIRI cancelling out Great Barrier. This stamp is known as VP 5.
VP 5 were also printed in sheets of 12 like VP 4, different from the 24 stamp sheet printing of the original VP 2. The perfs were also different coming down from 12 1/2 to 11 1/2 - 12.
Why were more VP 2 stamps printed and then overprinted? It was suggested that remaining stocks were running low but there were many of the VP 2 stamps unaccounted for (over 3,000) and VP 4 was also in production (It was issued the day after these!). More questions arose as the paper being used for these and VP 4 was different - and yet being printed by same folks - Wilson & Horton.
Only 20 sheets were printed - 240 stamps - and they were issued on 24 August 1899, the day before VP 4 and six weeks after the Agencies stamps. Note the overprint seems offset. This is because 'MAROTIRI' was intentionally placed to cancel out 'GREAT BARRIER' and 'Pigeongram' was intentionally positioned to cancel out 'SPECIAL POST'.
These are rare unused and very very rare used on piece. They are incredibly under catalogued for what they are. Below a mint copy of VP 5 from the collection. Unfortunately we don't yet have a copy on complete flimsy - there are only two recorded so it may take a little while to get one! If you have one lying around let me know! 🤣
Beware the Counterfeit
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There is a counterfeit version circulating. 'The Collection' has a copy below and I have seen another one for sale on Trade Me (NZ's eBay equivalent). It's very easy to identify because the alignment of the overprint is different. The fraudster obviously didn't comprehend the overprint was actually designed to block out certain parts of the stamp and so aligned the overprint in the wrong place leaving the GRE of 'GREAT' visible and blocking out half of 'ISLAND'. But the stamp itself is a copy and a poor one. The below image is actually a high quality scan done at the same time as the above image and you can see the lack of quality in the print job. The perforations are also cleaner and not rough like the original.
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