2018-02-26 Mon

The Tongan Post office had the most innovative way of presenting stamp and can say they were invariably way ahead of a philatelist’s idea of a postal stamp. They issued the first self-adhesive stamps of the world on the fascinating material which are not prohibitive or expensive e.g. the gold and silver foil. They issued stamp in different shapes like heart, maps, cross, and so on.

The above-shown images depict the first-day cover with the second series of a self-adhesive stamp issued in 1964 for the Pan Pacific South-East Asia Women’s Association meeting in Nukualofa. It was used for the postal service between Nukualofa to Samoa in June 1966. In the corner of this cover, a hand stamp cancellation was introduced specially to emboss on the gold foil self-adhesives stamp.

These foil stamps were greatly used by the indigenous and transplant locals, tourist, Government, general commerce, even missionaries.

Image Courtesy: The Philatelic Database