Lundy puffin postage stamps are widely known amongst the stamp collectors. The history behind the stamps of Lundy is pretty similar to stamps of Herm Island (see yesterday’s post if you missed it).

The short history of Lundy puffin postage stamps

In late 1927 the British GPO ceased their post office activities at Lundy due to low activity and interest. For the next couple of years the owner of island (or “King of Lundy” as he preferred) M.C. Harman (1885-1954) handled the mail to and from the island without charge using MV Lerina.

On November 1, 1929 Harman decided to offset the expense by issuing a series of private postage labels with a value expressed in “Puffins”; one puffing being equivalent of the British penny. The rest, as they say, is history…

Besides postage stamps Harman was also inspired to issue his own coins. There are two Lundy coins, the puffinand the half-puffin, with Mr Harman’s bust on the obverse and a puffin on the reverse. Both were ordered 100,000 copies at private mint in Birmingham. The coins lead Harman in trouble with the British authorities in 1931 for unauthorised minting of money.

Lundy stamps from my collection

Below are images of Lundy postage stamps I have in my collection. As I don’t have a printed catalogue for Lundy stamps, the information is gathered from various online sources. I’m very well aware that some information may be wrong. But please, drop in a comment and “educate me”

Let’s begin from the start… The ½ Puffin pink and the 1 Puffin blue values were issued on November 1, 1929 . Stamps were printed by Bradbury Wilkinson and Co Ltd half a million copies each.

Bradbury Wilkinson and Co Ltd did also the 6, 9 and 12 Puffin higher values introduced on the 9th July 1930. Below is an image of the imperf 9 puffin brown (on the right)  as well as the ½ puffin imperf (on the left, I suspect this to be a complete bogus).

Next on the line I have the 1939 “Standing Puffin” design. These were issued in values of 2,3 and 4 puffins.

In 1940 it was time for “V + Plane” Puffin overprints from the previous issues marking the 5th anniversary of airmail postage. Personally I’d be very interested to know what plane is on the overprint.

And few years later, 1943,  Lundy issued the “IX Anniversary of Airmail” puffin overprints.  This time also the colored frame design is done with overprint.

And finally a simple “BY AIR” overprint issued in in 1950.

And these stamps are by no means the end of Lundy locals. New Lundy locals (puffins and other topics) come out every once and then. In total there are over 300 different stamps issued.

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