Hawaiian Missionaries Stamp Auction Online Review
Strike up a conversation about “Hawaiian Missionaries” at a stamp auction online and you are sure to get a ton of philatelic history.
These plain beach-colored pieces, produced in 1851, were the first postage stamps issued by the little Kingdom of Hawaii. As their name suggests, Hawaiian Missionaries were mostly used by missionaries.
Date issued: October 1, 1851
Estimated existence: 15
Known for: 1st Hawaiian stamps
Face value: USD 2¢
Estimated value: £450,000.00 (USD $722,517.98) unused
~£225,000.00 (USD $361258.99) used
History
The Hawaiian Missionaries were a product of their time. The year was 1849 – the era of the legendary California Gold Rush. People were flocking to San Francisco to dig for a possible fortune.
Now across the sea aways on the little island sojourned missionaries (mainly Christian). At this time Hawaii was not a part of the United States. (It was the last state to join the Union in 1959.) But they heard tell of the boomtown taking place. Greed was running high and many disenchanted “Forty-niners” (as they were called for the year) were soon to return home with little more than they had started with.
Missionary correspondence spiked. Ship captains had kindly been delivering the mail as they could, but now it was not enough. The Polynesians needed a system of reliable delivery.
Issuance
In June of 1851 the government set up their postal system and authorized the printing of stamps. The first Hawaiian stamps, Hawaiian Missionaries, had three values – 2 cents, 5 cents and 13 cents. Two cents were required to send a newspaper to the States. Five cents was for all other mail to the US except for the East Coast, which required a costly 13 cents.
First and most simply was the type of paper on which they were printed. Usually the paper for adhesives is thicker, tougher, more durable than stationery. This was not. It was tissue-thin, in fact – very easy to tear. Ninety percent of known Hawaiian Missionaries are damaged in some way.
The other noteworthy difference was the heading. On the 2- and 5-cent Missionaries, the print read “Hawaiian Postage” because it was paid to the Hawaiian government. Because the 13-cent Hawaiian Missionaries stamp was paid to both Hawaiian and US governments for delivery, the marking at the top read “H.I. & U.S. Postage.”
The Dawson Cover
The Missionaries got auction-interesting in 1892 when the owner, Gaston Leroux, was murdered for his Missionary stamp worth USD $41,000, then the most expensive stamp in the world.
The most valuable of all Missionary things is a single envelope (technically a “cover” in philately) called the Dawson Cover. It bears four Missionary stamps: a 2-cent, 5-cent and 2 3-cent stamps. A workman discovered the cover crammed in the furnace of an abandoned factory in 1905. It is the only known cover housing a 2-cent Missionary stamp.
In 1995 the cover fetched an amazing USD $1.9 million at the Siegel stamp auction. Then it changed hands again for USD $2.09 million, making this item one of the rarest pieces in stamp collecting.
If you are in the market for one of the most valuable pieces in philately, then you must investigate the Dawson Cover at a stamp auction online.