2018-07-24 Tue

The first provisional Faroe Islands stamps appeared at the beginning of 1919 out of necessity! In 1816, the Faroe Islands became a county in the Danish Kingdom. Since then, Denmark influenced the administration of this small group of the island we call the Faroe Islands. The Danish also founded Post Offices which were supplied by the stamps of Denmark.

In the year 1919, the Danish postal service raised the letter postage rate from 5 ore to 7 ore. During World War I, shipments between Denmark and their territory of the Faroe Islands were problematic. The new 7ore stamps did not arrive on time.

Hence, the Faroe Island post offices used the 1 ore and 2 ore definitive stamps to make up the new rate and they soon ran out of the smaller denominations. The Faroe Islands post offices solved the issue by bisecting the 4 ore postage stamps for use as 2 ore postage stamps.

The image shown above illustrates that the 5 ore green stamp is accompanied with the bisected 2ore blue stamp. The provisional Faroe Islands stamps were used in this manner from approximately January 3, 1919, to January 23, 1919. They are now, very interesting and rare philatelic collectables.

Image Courtesy: https://www.stamp-collecting-world.com