Postage stamps are a fact of everyday life, but that doesn’t mean we should take them for granted. So much goes into their creation and they provide so many benefits that, if you stop and think, they can be the subject of fascinating conversations and hours of intriguing reading. Here are just seven reasons why stamps are never boring.  

1. They may be valuable. 

If you ever go through your great-great-grandmother’s trunk and find a certain stamp from 1907, you will be looking at $128,000. That’s the catalogue listed value of a stamp that was printed to sell for five shillings, but was then overprinted with a hand stamp to show the value as one pence, shown as “1D”, upside down. 

But you don’t have to go back a hundred years or more to find stamps that collectors consider valuable. In 2008, the Postal Service released an issue titled “Greetings” with such inscriptions as Hello, Best Wishes, Congratulations and You’re Invited. The 2010 Stanley Gibbons Commonwealth Stamp Catalogue states: “The 25-cent ‘You’re Invited’ self-adhesive stamp originally featured a design showing a ‘Popping Champagne cork and glasses’. This design was rejected and replaced by the ‘invitation and fireworks’ design. However, examples of the original design were included with those supplied to the Islands and released in error.” 

Collectors, hobbyists and historians apparently love errors. If the 1907 overprinted stamp referred to above has the “1D” right side up, the value drops to around $480. What the 2008 “error” is worth has not been established, but one knowledgeable source puts it at potentially “several hundred dollars”. 

Recognised local authority Ivan Burges points out that all stamp prices depend on “a willing buyer and a willing seller”. 

2. They may involve controversy.  

Imagine a civil servant whose behaviour in office is examined by a Committee of the Privy Council in London. That happened in the 1920s after a postmaster general was suspended on half pay following complaints of stamp orders not filled and money order discrepancies. He was subsequently informed “that the Council accepted your plea, your guilt of negligence and incompetence and agreeing your resignation should be accepted”. 

Fifteen years earlier there was another kind of controversy and it reached the highest office in the land. Commissioner George S. S. Hirst, revered as the compiler of Notes on the History of the Cayman Islands, was by virtue of his office many things, including Judge and Postmaster (as well as medical doctor). 

In 1907, a shortage developed of the ½ pence stamp and at Hirst’s request, 40 sheets of 1 pence stamps were sent to Jamaica for overprinting. This practice was discouraged on the basis of the temptation it afforded to Postmasters, Treasurers and other public officers, “of making irregular profits by dealings with stamp dealers and collectors.” Permission had been reluctantly given for the first overprint; two later overprints aroused suspicions. Cayman’s new history book, Founded upon the Seas, reports that, “After an official inquiry, Commissioner Hirst was exonerated of wilful wrongdoing.”

3. You won’t understand Cayman’s history without them. 

Born Caymanian or expat, long-term resident or short-term permit holder, you will appreciate these Islands more if you have some understanding of their history. Postage stamps are visual aids to that history, marking significant social and political events. 

For example, although the first post office in Cayman opened in 1889, it sold Jamaican stamps because Cayman was a dependency of Jamaica. There was no local mail service, but the stamps were for letters sent outside these Islands. This meant people no longer had to make private arrangements with seamen or friends for sending or receiving correspondence. Schooners carried mail to Tampa, Montego Bay or Cuba as the first step to its destination.  

The second post office opened in Cayman Brac at Stake Bay in 1898. This also was for international mail -- the Islands did not have mail service with each other for another 10 years.  

It was Sir Henry Blake, a Governor of Jamaica, who thought Cayman should have distinctive stamps with the words “Cayman Islands” overprinted on Jamaican stamps. The Universal Postal Union, established in the 1870s to coordinate postal service worldwide, did not approve of the idea. 

Cayman did, however, get its own stamps. Printed in London, they were in denominations of ½ pence and one pence, and featured the portrait of a young Queen Victoria in a style similar to stamps in the rest of the British Empire. They arrived on Island, by ship of course, in November 1900, but apparently did not go on sale until February 1901. The issue was very popular, but short-lived because Queen Victoria had died a month earlier. The Victorian issue was replaced by stamps showing her successor, Edward VII and then George V. 

Revenue from postal services in 1899-1900 was 26 Jamaican pounds. But once Cayman had its own stamps, that revenue jumped to 268 pounds for 1900-01 and then to 585 pounds the following year. In 1913-14, revenue from postal services was 2,750 pounds -- well over half of government’s total revenue of 5,044 pounds. 

Cayman’s Colonial Report for 1926 makes another interesting distinction: Of the postal services revenue of 2,232 pounds, 80 per cent or 1,788 pounds came from sales of stamps to collectors. Those 1,788 pounds constituted 24.4 per cent of the Islands’ total revenue. 

Reports for years following continued to list Import Duties and Stamp sales as the two principal sources of revenue until the early 1970s. 

Stamps also marked political milestones.  

In 1932, for the first time, a Caymanian element became part of a stamp design. This was Cayman’s first commemorative stamp, issued to honour the 100th anniversary of the Assembly of Justices and Vestry, the Islands’ legislature. The design featured the reigning monarchs of 1832 and 1932, facing each other with palm trees in between them and two different kinds of turtles at the base. 

In 1962, when Cayman became a Crown Colony and was no longer a Dependency of Jamaica, a whole new set of 15 stamps with a new design was issued -- Queen Elizabeth II’s portrait and all local scenes.  

4. Stamps can be works of art. 

In 1935, for King George V’s Jubilee, a new set of Cayman stamps was issued. Fifty years later, collector Richard Baltulis could still refer to it as “one of the most beautiful sets of a stamp-issuing country”. 

Neville Williams, in A History of the Cayman Islands, stated “Few countries, if any, can rival the Caymans in maintaining down the years series that combine sheer beauty of design with simple dignity.” 

Until 1962, all stamps were steel engraved. The process, known as recess printing, lent itself to fine detail and a look of dimensionality. Since then, stamps have been printed by lithography or photogravure. These processes lend themselves to wider use of colour and increased quantities to meet grater demands.  

5. They illustrate our heritage. 

The 1935 stamp set referred to above featured in their design maps of the three Islands, a cat boat, booby birds, queen conchs and hawksbill turtles. The king’s portrait is framed in thatch rope. 

The 1962 stamp issue was almost prescient in the subjects chosen. They included the Cayman parrot and Schomburgkia thomsoniana orchid, which have since become our official national bid and national flower. The silver thatch palm, our national tree, was not featured, but other subjects emphasised the sea and hinted at the tourism boom that was to come. They showed a catboat, the Kirk B schooner, a map of the Islands, a fisherman casting his net from shore, an angler with a king mackerel, a swimming pool on Cayman Brac (with palm trees), water sports, an iguana and green turtle. Fort George was also illustrated, along with Cayman’s new Coat of Arms. 

This theme has continued over the years, with recent issues illustrating the catboat and the first in a series of pioneers. 

6. They help us celebrate. 

Other events stamps have helped us celebrate include the 2004 and 2008 Olympics, the Centenary of Rotary international and World Cup Football. 

Stamps paid tribute to the programmes of the National Drug Council in 2000 and the work of local non-profit organisations in 2001. 

7. You can be involved by suggesting subjects  

Along with the scores of post office employees, there are a few people in the private sector who give their time to provide an important service -- meeting with interested civil servants and recommending subjects to be depicted on future stamp issues. This Stamp Advisory Committee is chaired by Sheena Glasgow, Postmaster General. Five members are individuals who enjoy stamps and volunteer their time for no pay. They are Lennon Christian, Carmin Godfrey, Shaun McCann, Lyndhurst Bodden and Ivan Burges. 

The Stamp Advisory Committee remains conservative in the number of new stamp issues they recommend -- no more than four or five per year. 

Although the Stamp Advisory Committee makes preliminary decisions about what goes on stamps, members of the public are free to make suggestions. The recently issued Pioneers of Our History is a good example. In fact, when the stamps were released last month, Glasgow made a specific appeal for nominations from the public for inclusion in a second issue of the series.  

Ideas may be put in writing to the Postmaster General. 

Anybody who does put an idea forward should understand that the process from idea to conception, takes about a year and a half. It begins with a schedule agreed on by the Stamp Advisory Committee. The information is then sent for approval to the Ministry with responsibility for Postal Services. Then it is sent to Cabinet for final approval. Once Cabinet has approved it goes through one more process - Royal approval.