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| Sunday, 22 June 2003 |
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| News Business Features Editorial
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'Rare' stamp really Bill of Exchange The 'rare' stamp reported in last Sunday's Observer issue is not a stamp at all but a kind of early colonial "Bill of Exchange". According to a local expert, the stamp is a Third of Exchange Foreign Bill falling within the category of document of 'Fiscal Stamps', and hence is not a philatelic item. Frederick Medis, Vice President of Sri Lanka Society for Numismatic Studies responding to the article 'Rare Stamp Found', states that these stamps were used between 1872 and 1901 as denoted by the value in cents and that they had been used with the portrait of Queen Victoria as well as King Edward VII. He states: These 'stamps' had served the purpose of a charge on foreign bills, depending on the face value of the imports. "The 'Third of Exchange' on a receipt was used to validate the document on which the stamps were affixed. They bore the marks and seals to denote the firm or bank with the signatures and dates written on or across them in indelible ink." Medis also states that prior to the use of decimal currency, exchange of bills denoting the face value in pounds, shillings or pence had also been used in British colonies. He further states that only two local banks in the country had been authorised to issue currency notes - the Oriental Bank Corporation and Chartered Mercantile Bank. Meanwhile Oliver T. Goonawardena has also written in from Moratuwa stating that the Queen Victoria stamps were issued on October 1, 1874 and the King Edward VII stamps in 1904. According to him, overprints of the Queen Victoria stamps had been done between 1885 and 1895 and Foreign Bill stamps were abolished in March 01, 1910. |
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