The truth is within and only you can reveal it 26 Jun 2017 12:09:37am
I found this in an auction lot I just received and it has me stumped. It is printed by the American Bank note Company so it wouldn't be a Cinderella. Correos is inscribed in the top label so it appears to be a regular postage stamp. It's an imperf which is not common for Panamanian stamps. It is also printed in Blue which would be the correct color of the period for a 5 centesimo stamp. My Panama is basically complete except for the early maps but I can't remember ever seeing this stamp.
The writer of the webpage linked by Don is correct. This is a cut square from a stamped envelope. It looks like it was revalued for local use (the five cent rate being for international surface mail).
If you find it doesn't fit in your collection I would be happy to take it off your hands as I do not have an example for my Panama postal stationary collection.
The truth is within and only you can reveal it 26 Jun 2017 03:45:51pm
re: Panama I.D. help needed
Don & Smauggie, Thanks much for the info. I was beginning to doubt it was the last item, it seemed like I went through a couple hundred pics. I had forgot to mention that it was on thick stamp like stock not card stock. I'm wondering if it came off some official envelopes. The surcharge of 2 on 5 is rather curious. It would seem the stamp would exist without surcharge, unless the usage or intended rate could have changed very soon after printing. At any rate the main part of the mystery is solved, so, I can properly mount it. One would think there would be many more of these than they show on that site. It would be nice to see what others Panama has. Most South of the Border countries have quite a few of these type of things.
Sorry Smauggie but I don't part with any officially issued stamps, if I only have the one. The second one rarely means much to me
There may have been a 2 cent rate for which postal stationary was in short supply. There are several Panamanian stamps from this era that are surcharged at a new value that is less than the original face value. It is a common practice around the world to surcharge stamps with new amounts that are higher or lower than original face value due to shortages of other values.
