This is the ninth display in a series intended to show the first issues of every country. That includes the first stamp and (where issued) the first commemorative, airmail, charity, official and post due.
A recent development in these displays is to show all the provincial first issue commemoratives when the first stamp of the parent country arrives. In this case, Germany issued in 1872 to provide a significant challenge with twenty provincials, most of which have been commemorated.
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1st March 1871 SG1 Sc1 |
Commemorative 1897 SG62 Sc60 Central American Exposition |
Airmail 1929 SG239 Sc-C1 |
Charity 1919 SG158 Sc-RA1 Obligatory Tax, GPO Rebuilding Fund |
Official 1902 SG-O12 Sc-O1 |
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First real airmail 1929 SG254 Sc-C7 Fokker Super Trimotor over Mt. Agua |
Charity 1937 SG325 Sc-B1 Philatelic Exhibition Fund |
Central America, Guatemala borders Mexico, Belize, the Caribbean, Honduras, El Salvador and the Pacific. Its first issue was on 1st March 1871 and all its other firsts were pretty stylish, but its finest early stamp was an Express issue, shown on the page devoted to those idiosyncratic items. No post due.
The first Charity was to build a Post Office: there have been several of these, all in Central or South America and
they will be gathered together.
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20th April 1871 SG1 Sc1 |
Commemorative 1894 SG126 Sc85 Silver Wedding anniv. Emperor Meiji and Empress Haru |
Airmail [1919] 1929 SG260 Sc-C6 |
Charity 1937 SG336 Sc-B1 Aerodrome Fund |
My Japan #1 isn’t terribly well preserved, but there is comfort to be taken from the fact that it is unlikely to have been forged into such a state. Both the first airmail and the first real airmail are expensive and so the FSP (first sensibly-priced) airmail is shown. No official or post due stamps, but a large number of occupation issues during WW2, which will be shown together in the Occ3 display.