Summary

Spain controlled the Philippines for over 375 years, creating an interesting and complex story of the Islands’ postal routes, rates, and markings. The Spanish occupation of the Philippine Islands spanned a period from 1521, when Ferdinand Magellan discovered the islands, through 1898, when Commodore Dewey defeated the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay.

The book, which took over 20 years to write, discusses postal rates, routes, and markings of the Spanish period, beginning in 1565, when the first letter was mailed, through the issuance of stamps from 1854 through 1898. The book addresses the transport of mail from the islands using Spanish ships, American whaling vessels, British and French packet ships, and naval vessels. It covers the transport of Philippine mail by Spanish galleon via Acapulco, and other sail and steam ships via various ports in India, the Persian route, the Cape of Good Hope route, the Isthmus of Suez route, and routes to Far East ports, such as Hong Kong, Singapore, and Macao. The book describes the postal rates of the stampless and adhesive periods, including interior and overseas rates, registration fees, newspaper and circular rates, postal card rates, and the use of British Asian stamps on overseas mail. The book addresses official mail, military mail, consulate mail, numerical markings applied on incoming mail, cancellation types, and mail to and from the Mariana and Caroline Islands.

We hope the book will encourage interest in collecting postal history of the Spanish Philippines, and prove useful to the novice and advanced collector and postal historian alike.

Don Peterson and Geoffrey Lewis