The small
dot at the tip of the arrow represents Saint Helena island – volcanic but
unlikely to erupt, remote but not out of the way for early South Atlantic
seafarers, small in population (4439 in 2021) but with a huge output of stamps.
Initially
uninhabited, Saint Helena was discovered by the Portuguese in 1502. For four
centuries thereafter it provided respite for travelers rounding the Cape of
Good Hope – thanks, in part, to the goats introduced by early mariners to
provide fresh meat. The roaming goats thrived but they wiped out the endemic
flora. The English settled the island in 1659, and they continued operating a
port of call there despite some brief Dutch interventions. In the 19th
century the island’s remoteness made it an ideal site to deposit exiles – the
British dispatched Napolean Bonapart there (1815) as well as the Zulu King
Dinuzulu (1890), and many male Boer prisoners during the Anglo-Boer War. Saint
Helena became the world’s first overseas prisoner of war camp (1900-02). After
the Suez Canal opened (1869) Saint Helena ceased to be a busy port of call.
While Saint Helena’s stamps became increasingly popular with collectors after the pictorial issues of 1902 hit the philatelic market, such was not the case with earlier issues. Residents needed only a few stamps and overseas sales languished. Charged with disposing of obsolete Saint Helena stamps, Postmaster Thomas B. Bruce sold those portraying Queen Vitoria (£8,000-worth) to stamp dealers in mint condition or as CTOs (1904). He received 2.5 percent of the proceeds. For the CTOs he chose a curious mesh obliteration, struck with water-soluble purple ink.
The current enthusiasm about St. Helena stamps among collectors can be traced in large part to Thomas Bruce – postmaster (1898 - 1928), brass band leader, church organ rebuilder, youthful trans-Atlantic stowaway, painter, stevedore, graverobber, stamp designer, etc. etc.
By all
measures, Saint Helena’s most famous resident was Napoleon. He died there May
5, 1821, after six years of post-Waterloo exile. There, the British surmised,
he could not stir up further trouble. Island life was bleak and tormented for
him. He attempted, in a way, to learn English. In quaint “Frenglish” he wrote:
Since
sixt week j learn the Englich and j do not any progress. Six week do fourty and
two day. If might have learn fivity word four day I could know it two thusands
and two hundred. It
is in the dictionary more of fourty thousand; even he could must twinty bout
much of tems for know it our hundred and twenty week, which do more two yars.
After this you shall agrée that to study one tongue is a great labour who it
must do into the young aged.
Following Thomas
Bruce’s lead into the 21st century, Saint Helena’s artistic stamps
continue to attract collectors and prop up the island’s small economy; as is also
the case with Ascension Island and Tristan da Cunha, two sister islands in the
South Atlantic. Only recently, though, has Napoleon’s image been featured in
Saint Helena’s philatelic output. Rather than his brilliance as a military
strategist and contributions to French history and culture, the Saint Helena
portrayals feature his exile, bleak life on the island, and death at Longwood
House.
Census: 44
inn BB spaces, 30 on supplement pages.
Jim's Observations
The 2020 Scott Classic Specialized 1840-1940 catalogue has, for St. Helena 1856-1949, 143 major number descriptions. Of those, 31 are CV <$1-$1+, or 22%. St. Helena, being a popular island British colony, is expensive for the earlier issues, and moderately expensive for the later issues.
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