THE 1988 TOURISM STAMPS
AND OTHER VARIETIES PRINTED BY THE FORMAT INTERNATIONAL SECURITY PRINTERS LTD.

The Production of the 1988 Saint Vincent Tourism Stamps

In January of 1988 the Format International Security Printers Ltd. were commissioned By the St. Vincent postal authorities to produce another issue of stamps depicting various scenes of Tourist Activities. The stamps were to commemorate Tourism around the country. The set of stamps were produced for Saint Vincent and they issued the stamps on February 26, 1988.
This is the set which was produced and issued:

1988 TOURISM Scott #1095-9, SG #1133-6, MS1136a






According to prior written information and internet research the following findings will be presented and will stand until solid evidence is presented proving otherwise........

The $10 mini sheets was stated by Robson Lowe as not being issued yet both catalogs list it. Stanley Gibbons lists it as MS1136a which is odd. There were 280 mini panes found in the archive.
I have seen other cases such as this where the catalogs just go and list a set or souvenir sheet only because they are on the market. This especially seems to hold true with issues that were produced by the Format Printers. The issue never being postally issued but after the liquidation of the company and the flood of the unissued stamps or souvenir sheets that came onto the market rather than noting that the particular stamps or souvenir sheets were unissued just decided to list them. You may notice that the pricing for used copies of this particular souvenir sheet is much higher for used than for mint. There is a reason. It was never issued! Try to find a postally used one. And not First Day Cancelled either. Those don't count.

According to the documents obtained from the trial exhibits the following quantities were produced and distributed to Saint Vincent and the Philatelic Distribution Corporation (PDC).

To Saint Vincent;
60,000 perforated sets and 5,000 perforated Souvenir Sheets

To the PDC;
10,000 perforated sets and 5,000 perforated Souvenir Sheets

To the Universal Postal Union:
565 perforated sets and 565 perforated Souvenir Sheets

Pricing is in range in the standard catalogs.

THE NORMAL IMPERFORATE PROOFS




To Saint Vincent:
None were sent

To the PDC:
3,000 imperforate sets 1,000 imperforate Souvenir Sheets

Pricing should run at around $5-10.00 for set of singles and around $25-35.00 for the Souvenir sheet as imperforates

THE PROGRESSIVE COLOR PROOFS



According to the Documents there is no evidence that progressive color proofs of the Souvenir Sheet were ever produced. There are none on the market anywhere.
The documents show that....

To the PDC:
3,000 sets of the progressive color proofs of the single stamps were sent.

Pricing should run at around $10-15.00 for a complete set of progressives.

THE SPECIMEN OVERPRINTS




To Saint Vincent:
2,000 perforated sets overprinted SPECIMEN and 2,000 perforated Souvenir Sheets overprinted SPECIMEN

To the PDC:
2,000 perforated sets overprinted SPECIMEN and 1,000 imperforate sets overprinted SPECIMEN.
1,000 perforated Souvenir Sheets overprinted SPECIMEN and 1,000 imperforate Souvenir Sheets overprinted SPECIMEN

I have seen none of the imperforates with SPECIMEN overprint on the market.

Pricing should run at around $5-7.00 for a complete set of singles and $10-15.00 for the souvenir sheet overprinted SPECIMEN.

GUTTERS ETC.



Judging from what is available it appears that the gutters and cross gutters from uncut press sheets have an extreme rarity factor. Cross gutters are extremely rare and it seems no uncut press sheets can be found. Normal gutter pairs (with logo in the middle) seem modestly rare. These come mainly from double panes.

VARIETIES

No made for collector errors are available on the market for this issue. There do exist plate flaws and such.
The documentation does show the production of missing color stamps was done. They may have been destroyed.
The documents show that....

To the PDC:
2,000 perforated sets missing color and 1,000 imperforate sets missing color were produced and sent.
1,000 perforated Souvenir Sheets with missing color and 1,000 imperforate Souvenir Sheets with missing color were produced and sent.

This basically sums up what was produced for the Saint Vincent 1988 Tourism issue. If and as more information becomes available, this page can and will be updated accordingly.

References taken from:
Trial exhibit #42
Stanley Gibbons Windward Islands and Barbados
Scott Catalog
Inventory list for the Format Archive by Robson Lowe
The Bileski Documentation
Online internet research

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