Mexico

Friday, August 1, 1856.

Mexico Scott #1

Imperforate, white wove paper, no watermark, engraved.

The first issue
Description	# printed	# issued	# destroyed	Scott #
½ real blue	991,559	772,591	218,968	1
1 real yellow	1,425,275	1,410,220	15,055	2
2 reales green	1,629,773	1,622,383	7,390	3
4 reales red	167,715	153,191	14,524	4
8 reales violet	102,249	96,057	6,192	5

All issue quantities are approximate. Stamps were burnt between April 18, 1861 and sometime (early) 1863.

District name overprints on the first issue and # sold.
ACAPULCO	2,940	AGUASCALTES *	60	APAM	12,300
B. CALIFORNIA *	360	CAMPECHE	4,440	C. BRAVOS	?
CHALCO	11,115	CHIAPAS	7,088	CHIHUAHUA	7,920
CORDOVA	5,980	CUERNAVACA	10,924	DURANGO	10,174
GUADALAJARA	61,068	GUADALUPE HGO.	337	GUANAJUATO	51,389
HERMOSILLO	6,060	HUEJUTLA	2,940	I. DEL CARMEN	399
IXTLAHUACA	518	JALAPA	26,660	LAGOS	8,630
LERMA	928	MARAVATIO	5,447	MAZATLAN	22,747
MERIDA	16,380	MEXICO	113,800	MONTERREY	7,260
MORELIA	21,439	OAJACA (OAXACA)	27,490	ORIZAVA	15,546
PACHUCA	18,647	PUEBLA	56,830	QUERETARO	29,544
SALTILLO	3,677	S. L. POTOSI	23,228	SOYANIQUILPAN	820
SULTEPEC	720	TABASCO	5,899	TACUBAYA	72
TAMPICO	22,920	TEMASCALTEPEC	1,560	TIXTLA GUERRERO	1,354
TLALPAM *	368	TLALPUJAHUA	1,000	TOLUCA	28,271
TULA	4,584	TULANCINGO	12,117	VERACRUZ	45,304
VICTORIA	5,708	YGUALA	120	ZACATECAS	41,317

These districts did not overprint, with # sold.
COLIMA *	650	CUAUTITLAN *	1,126	PEROTE	300
POLOTITLAN	189	SAN FELIPE DEL O.	240	TEPEJI DEL RIO	561
TEXCOCO *	50	VILLA DEL VALLE *	120	ZITACUARO *	120

Districts marked with * indicate that no surviving stamps are known.

To prevent stolen stamps from being used, the stamps were distributed to the postal districts (administraciones) without overprints. Upon arrival but before being distributed to the sub-offices or sold to the public, they were hand stamped with the district name. Some of the smaller districts did not follow this practice, and there were instances where stamps were used without overprint from even some of the larger districts.

It is unknown whether Baja California overprinted the stamps or not. Districts that did not overprint the stamps can only be identified via the cancellation.

The ZACATECAS district name is also found in manuscript overprint.

It is a little known fact that Mexican law required businesses to save their correspondence indefinitely. This is why Mexican first issue stamps are relatively common on the market despite their fairly small issue quantities.

You can read more about Mexico's first stamp in First Issues vol. 1 #3 p4, vol. 1 #4 p4 and vol.7 #4 p1.

Your humble webmaster has a pet project going about Mexico 1856 - 1861

Mexico Elmhurst Philatelic Society International (MEPSI) will get you started on collecting Mexico.

A beautiful exhibit of Mexico Hidalgo First Issue is available just a click away!

This page was last modified on Monday, 13-Nov-2006 22:28:37 PST