Philippine Stamp Overprints in the Context of Surcharges

A notable era of stamps in the Philippines is the time of heavy reliance on overprinting previous issues. These usually come either as provisional surcharge overprints or commemorative overprints, which may or may not include a surcharge. The practice has more or less stopped in the 90's, where most overprints are done on souvenir sheets, generally in regards to a philatelic exhibition (some surcharges did occasionally happen, a notable one in 2000). Still, during the 70's-80's a year would not pass without an overprinted issue.

This essay will not cover early pre-cancellations of stamps for official purposes.

Overprints are usually done as a cheap means of issuing postage for a specific purpose. Rather than designing and printing an entirely new stamp issue, it's costs less to take existing stock and slapping something on top of it. There's also the need to put to use old stock, may it be surplus definitives or commemoratives that are no longer relevant. For collectors can become a headache as overprints are categorically different for the purposes of collecting.

Provisional surcharge overprints

When issuing a stamp it does happen that the number on it no longer corresponds snugly to the current postal rates. This is often done on old commemoratives, though old definitives have also received this treatment. Commemoratives are generally valued for common mail rates at the time and surcharges are made adjusting to the new rates, though surcharges to both higher and lower values have been made. The choice for which commemoratives are to be overprinted tend to be arbitrary as the provisional surcharges are for the purposes of having enough stamps, whatever the original stamp was for is of little importance.

Surcharged commemorative overprints

In lieu of printing a new issue for some events, old stock gets overprinted with the relevant event info. Surcharging can also take place to fit the stamp's value to the current rates, but is generally incidental to the topical overprint. 

One notable example is the 1985 issue for the 25th anniversary of the Girl Scouts of the Philippines where the 1976 Montreal Olympics issue, itself an overprint of a stamp for the 1972 Munich Olympics, is overprinted once more, its olympic providence obscured and its value adjusted once more into three values (ironically the 1972 issue originally came in three different values but only the 10s version was overprinted four years later). 

The original Munich 1972 issue...

...reused four years later...

...and nine years later on.

Philatelic Week was declared in 1969, but for its first years up to 1981, surcharged stamps were used to denote this event, the last of such overprints in 1985. Stamps especially printed for Philatelic Week continued even through its transition to National Stamp Collecting Month.

Non-surcharged overprints

Sometimes no surcharge happens to a stamp and it simply gets a new coat of ink to commemorate something. This happens when a stamp used still has a viable rate on it and oftentimes the gap between the original issue and the overprint is short. 

1966 overprint on 1964 stamp. This overprinted issue was later surcharged in 1973.

A non-surcharged Philatelic Week overprint

While some postage issues did receive this sort of treatment, later on this sort of overprinting mostly happened on souvenir sheets commemorating something philatelic, starting in the 90's. Although the overprints for this are done around the valued stamps, they still count as separate as souvenir sheets are not meant to be torn apart.

(Images: http://philippinestamps.net)