Page 166 - Jarvis & Wright: Jamaica Display to RPSL

Jamaica: The Vendryes Provisional

Second setting.
The remaining stock of the first setting was quickly depleted following the reduction to 2½d of the 4d
Postal Union rate from 1 January 1891. The Post Office had requisitioned the De La Rue key plate
2½d, but as a stop-gap they ordered another printing from Vendryes and Co in February 1891.
Estimates are that 40,000 of the second setting were printed, slightly fewer than the first setting. The
Post Office were determined to have enough 2½d stamps, and, Vendryes recalled, handed over all
the remaining stock of 4d stamps to be overprinted as surplus to requirements. The use of damaged
and part sheets may have contributed to some of the errors of this setting.
The setting was 12 overprints in 2 horizontal rows of 6, struck five times to complete the pane. The
upper row has 1mm between the two lines of the overprint and the lower row, 1.5mm.

Position:
1 2 3 4 5 6

Row 1, 1.0 mm
between lines →

19 mm ↑
between
overprints ↓

Row 2, 1.5 mm →
between lines

7 8 9 10 11 12

Second setting: watermark inverted and overprints misplaced.

These three marginal pieces are a partial reconstruction of the top of a pane with watermark inverted.
The top strike of the setting, which should cover rows 1 and 2, is a stamp too high, so positions 1 to 6 are into
the margin. An isolated stamp from the top row would appear to show a slight shift down, not up.

Columns 1 and 2. Column 5. Column 6.

Positions: 1 2
7 8

1 2

Positions: Positions:
5 6

11 12
Ex Swarbrick