IPPS Review

IPPS Review

BOOK REVIEW: SPANISH PHILIPPINES POSTAL HISTORY

Richard F. Winter

{This review appeared in the Philippine Philatelic Journal, Vol XXII No 4, Fourth Quarter 2000. This is the official publication of the International Philippine Philatelic Society.}

Postal History of the Spanish Philippines, 1865 – 1898, by Don Peterson and Geoffrey Lewis. Published 2000 by Don Peterson, Washington, D.C. 238 pages plus 15 pages of introductory text and table of contents. Fifteen chapters, six appendices, and bibliographic references. Over 160 cover illustrations, maps, and other relevant pictures, 26 tables of information, and numerous listings of vessels that brought mails to and from the Philippines. Hardbound with dust jacket. $95 from Donald J. Peterson, 7408 Alaska Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20012. Full range of ordering methods.

For over 375 years Spain controlled the Philippine Islands from 1521 when Ferdinand Magellan discovered the islands until 1898 when the American fleet under Commodore George Dewey defeated the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay. During these years the transport of mail to and from the islands occurred over numerous routes with many different rates governed by foreign postal arrangements, none of which were with the Philippine Islands. Two excellent postal historians, half a world apart, have explained the complex subject of Philippine Island mail very successfully. Don Peterson in the United States and Geoffrey Lewis in Australia have combined their special interests to provide an important new reference book, one that fills a very large hole of existing published postal history, that of the Philippine Islands.

The book is organized chronologically, first examining stampless period mail and then mail from the period of the Philippine adhesives. Nine chapters are devoted to the stampless period. Within each chapter, numerous postal routes are examined, often with illustrated maps. Detailed rates and the rate changes over the years for each route are provided as are numerous illustrations of very fine covers. Most collectors probably don’t have covers to or from the Philippines in their collections because this material is so difficult to find. The authors have extensive collections of these covers and are generous in supplying examples to illustrate the different routes and rates that they describe. The cover illustrations are excellent and reflect great care in preparing electronic scans for publication.

Early routes east across the Pacific from Manila to Acapulco and west by Spanish galleons around Africa to Spain are described. Whenever possible, the different postal markings and their variations are explained as well as the applicable rates. Where sailing ship lines were established to the Philippine Islands, the authors provide the names of the vessels that sailed for the line and the circumstances under which they may have carried mail. Equally important, the prevailing currency is described and any differences between Philippine currency and that of Spain and the other Spanish colonies.

After the pre-1820 period, the authors discuss stampless mail to Spain up to 1850. Here, the routes of both Spanish and British ships around the Cape of Good Hope, and through the Mediterranean to Egypt and from Suez to the Orient are described. When steamships were introduced along parts of the routes, they are described. Mail from the Philippines carried privately or by contract vessel to Hong Kong and Singapore, entered the British steamship mail system after 1845 and was rated exactly as if it had originated along the British mail route.

After examining the mail routes to Spain, the authors provide a short chapter on non-Spanish presence in the Philippines. This prepares the reader for extensive chapters that follow on ship letter mail to Great Britain (via the Cape of Good Hope and overland at Suez), to Far Eastern ports, to Europe, and finally to the United States. Postal routes and rates for each area are treated in separate chapters. Throughout these chapters the authors provide easily-read tables that summarize the rates and their changes over the years not only for single rate letters, but also for higher weight letters. These tables are important and most helpful as they provide a quick way to evaluate the postal rates found on covers. Because I thought that the tables were so useful, I was disappointed when I discovered that the authors neglected to include a listing of the tables and their page locations after the Table of Contents. This would have assisted readers in quickly finding desired tables.

In the chapter on the stampless mail to Far East ports, 1820-1860, the authors have reconstructed a mail packet service between Manila and Hong Kong in 1854-1856 to connect with the British P&O steamship service. They have identified the three steamers that operated once or twice monthly and many of the departure and arrival dates. While covering only a short-lived period, this new information allows students to understand another piece of the mystery surrounding the transport of mail to and from the Philippines.

The chapter of stampless mail to the United States provides good information on private ship and contract mail to and from the Philippines. Again, the authors have made generous use of tables to summarize information, sometimes available in other sources, but provided here conveniently for the reader. For example, a table from a 1968 article by George Hargest in The American Philatelist, that provided an excellent breakdown of rates between the United States and China via England, is included in this chapter since Philippine mail traveled the same routes with the same rates. I have used this Hargest article for many years because it is a very helpful table. Now the students who use this book also have ready access to this rate breakdown information. Other tables conveniently assemble United States ship letter and inland rates to understand incoming ship mail from the Philippines.

Before going into the period of Philippine adhesives, the authors provide a short chapter on the interior mail system of the Philippines, of which, apparently, little is known. Lists of Manila and other “local” postal stations are included along with some basic information about interior transportation, rates and rate markings. Again, a handy rate table is provided for the postage due on mail from foreign countries up to 1877 since there were no postal arrangements with those countries to pay letters to destination. The next three chapters provide extensive information on Philippine Islands postal rates during the early period of adhesives and into the Universal Postal Union period. The authors take the reader carefully through the various issues of adhesives and overprints as currencies changed. This is not a study of the production of the adhesives and their plating variations, but an excellent survey of how and for what purpose the adhesives was used. Besides interior and overseas postal rates, he covers the registration of mail, newspaper and circular rates. A very interesting chapter is included also on the use of the adhesives of India, Hong Kong and the Straits Settlements on overseas mail from the Philippines. Before the Philippines entered the General Postal Union in May 1877, the adhesives of the Spanish Philippines were not accepted for payment on foreign mail. Because of this some merchants, who carried stock of adhesives from the British Asian area, used them on foreign letters to prepay the letters. All such covers are uncommon and many quite rare. Again, the authors have provided tables to show the relative scarcity of the different British Asian adhesives on letters to specific countries and summaries of the values used for Indian, Hong Kong, and Straits Settlements adhesives. Special studies, such as this, are an important contribution to the overall postal history, which emphasizes the rates and routes used.

Although Spain was one of the original members of the General Postal Union, its colonies joined separately. The Philippines joined in May 1877, but no orders or implementing procedures were found by the authors until September 1879, when it was now called the Universal Postal Union. A full chapter of postal rates and usage during the Universal Postal Union period from 1879 to 1898 continues the postal history discussions. This chapter is extensively illustrated with cover examples and rate tables. It also includes a good discussion of the use of Philippine postal cards.

A most interesting aspect of this reference book is found in Chapter XIV, a large chapter that identifies the shipping firms and the ships known by the authors to have carried Philippine Island mail. The lists include not only shipping to foreign ports but also firms or merchant families that engaged in carrying inter-island mail. The authors present thirty pages of ship names, the year or years the ships were known in the Philippines, the Philippine ports visited, and the reference sources from which they obtained the information. The ships are listed by line from the following countries: Spanish/Philippine, Spanish naval vessels, French, British, American, German, and other. The listing ends with a full page of ship names that are of unknown nationality.

The last chapter discusses a variety of short, related postal history topics that includes papel sellado (revenue stamped paper), use of Spanish official adhesives, free franking, military mail, Mariana and Caroline Island mail, and the revenue adhesives used for postal purposes. Six appendices provide additional useful information, such as major addresses found on mail from the Philippines, monetary units of the postal issues, examples of markings applied to stampless mail, cancellations and obliterations on adhesive mail, registration markings, and private business markings. A nine-page list of references serves as a bibliography of books and articles (mostly the later) cited by the authors.

I have concentrated this review on the type of information found in this book so it will help the reader determine if this is a book for his own library. As a postal historian with more than a passing interest in maritime mails, I had no difficulty in deciding that this was an important book for my reference library. If you are a Philippine Islands enthusiast, then there is no question you will want the book also. As for other collectors, especially those interested in the British Asian mails, the rate and route information presented in this book will certainly be applicable and have interest. For those with general worldwide postal history interests, I am certain this book will fill a space in their libraries not currently occupied by books with similar information.

The authors had to deal with the unexpected difficulties of having the book’s type set in software not compatible with the word processing software they used. This resulted in problems of transcription. Proof reading caught some but not all of the transcription errors. Generally, this is not a problem for the reader except when the transcription error affects the data in a table, which happens in a few cases. Lastly, the publisher neglected to have the name of the book stamped on the hard cover. This will not become a problem until the dust jacket is removed, leaving a bound volume with no identification. Despite these few critical comments, which are technical in nature, I recommend the book to all serious postal historians as an excellent addition to their reference libraries.

Richard F Winter is a well-known well-respected authority of transatlantic postal history, especially in the pre-stamp era. Co-author of “North Atlantic Mail Sailings, 1840-75” published by the U.S. Philatelic Classics Society, Inc, in 1988, author of a number of articles for philatelic journals and special events, and signer of the Roll of Distinguished Philatelists in 1996.