Cuba 1911-13 - Scott 247-52 - (EDIFIL 190MT-94MT) SPECIMEN OVERPRINTS Blocks of 4
Scott 247-52 for the regularly issued stamps. Full original gum and never hinged. These are Specimen overprints from the archives of the American Banknote Company, originally sold by Christie's of New York in 1990. Stamps are overprinted with small Specimen in red and security punched to prevent postal usage. Of the 1c, 2c and 5c values, three additional stamps with large SPECIMEN overprints are also included. Of this issue, only 300 complete sets were found in the Archives of the ABC. Besides making the printing plates, the ABC also did the actual printing of these stamps. When they originally shipped these stamps to Cuba, they kept Specimen sheets of all the values. Later on, as the Cuban Post Office ran out and reordered more stamps of some of the lower values, SPECIMEN sheets of those reprints were also placed in their archives. That is the reason why there are two different versions of the 1 centavo, 2 centavos and 5 centavos stamps, with large and small Specimen overprints. But we are not sure why the One Peso stamp exists only with large SPECIMEN overprint.