I am curious about a few covers I have from Iceland circa the "occupation" during WWII. The envelopes are all from the US Department of Agriculture mailed to Washington featuring Icelandic stamps with Washington, DC cancellations. I have my doubts they actually ever touched an Icelandic post office though. I read someplace a long time ago that the Americans didn't trust the Icelandic Post Office because of the potential for spying. That would explain the Washington, DC cancellations. If anyone is interested I can post a few pictures of them. And if anyone knows the story behind the US Department of Agriculture and what their involvement was in Iceland and why these covers have only the Washington, DC cancellations. For those curious I have been collecting Icelandic stamps, FDC and singles, for a long time but just tripped across these box I forgot about.
re: Anyone collect Icelandic Stamps from WWII? I have a mystery to ask about.
I am also a collector of Iceland stamps. I haven't seen covers like you mentioned. Have you checked with the Scandinavian Collectors Club. Their website is scc-online.org
re: Anyone collect Icelandic Stamps from WWII? I have a mystery to ask about.
Before the Americans took over in early July 1941, the British had 'occupied' the country since May 10 1940. I doubt very much if this occupation had anything whatsoever to do with stamp issues, but here is the relevant page from my collection.
You'll see that the dealer didn't have the key value, which catalogues at many times the price of the other three - one of those annoying gaps. I note also that my final comment is inaccurate, as another set commemorating Snorre Sturluson was issued in November 1941.
BuckaCover.com - 80,000 covers priced 60c to $1.50 - Easy browsing 300 categories 03 Feb 2017 09:07:48am
re: Anyone collect Icelandic Stamps from WWII? I have a mystery to ask about.
A picture would be good, but Niglec is undoubtedly correct. Sounds like a diplomatic bag cover. The diplomatic corps were instructed to use domestic postage stamps of the resident country so as not to circumvent the local postal authorities. The correspondence was then sent to Washington in the diplomatic bag, where the foreign stamps were cancelled with the Washington DC postmark and entered into the US mailstream.
Here is a sample from Ceylon:
Roy
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BuckaCover.com - 80,000 covers priced 60c to $1.50 - Easy browsing 300 categories 03 Feb 2017 09:55:14am
re: Anyone collect Icelandic Stamps from WWII? I have a mystery to ask about.
Here is another one from India. These diplomatic bag covers frequently, but not always, carry this handstamp in various formats. I have had them back to as early as the 1910's.
Roy
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re: Anyone collect Icelandic Stamps from WWII? I have a mystery to ask about.
I have been collecting for 60 years and you always learn something new. The process about wartime mail back to the US is fascinating. I never took notice of the British occupation issue either.
re: Anyone collect Icelandic Stamps from WWII? I have a mystery to ask about.
Thanks to those that answered. I sort of figured it was somewhat along those lines. However I was missing the diplomatic pouch. Didn't think of that.
Presently I am redoing my floors and somewhere in the midst of all I misplaced the box. I will post them when I figure out what box they ended up in. I have covers from the war with the censor's mark and I believe I even have one that was on a war ship which had no stamp but simply a post mark. I believe that it's in the same box wherever it is. Actually there are some very interesting covers in the box including a few from military academies in Pakistan and then like. However I forget half of what is in there. Got to figure out where it's at and have another look. I remembered about being curious about some of the other ones.
Anyway he renovations is bad enough but today a delivery guy upended about a kilos of sorted out stamps in tubs which went straight up into the air and down all across the room. His response was opps. That was it. He must have missed the class which all Canadians take that says apologize even if you're not responsible. Two weeks work turned into air mail. I came close to committing what can only be described as stamp collector rage. Good thing I was only armed with tweezers. I can imagine the conversation in court... and if I got the right judge I would have walked but I amazed myself, I only swore after he left.
re: Anyone collect Icelandic Stamps from WWII? I have a mystery to ask about.
Paul,
I think we're combining several different ideas here.
diplomatic pouch: where embassy personnel, including military attaches and Marine guards would post their mail to the US (or whereever) using the pouch AND franking their covers with the stamps of the host country (they could also choose to use the host country's postal service)
military mail: all active duty service members were permitted to send mail free frank, so mail from a warship or a base or even a front line unit would have no stamp IF it were mailed first class (as opposed to air mail or with other auxilliary services).
