Coat of Arms 1890
January 6, 1890 to July 3, 1891 - 18 months
Along with several other Latin American nations Honduras signed onto an agreement with Mr. Seebeck of New York City. Seebeck took care of the printing of Honduran stamps in exchange for the rights to unlimited use of the printing plates after the stamps were demonitized. He flooded the market with these authorized reprints for collectors and forever tainted Latin American stamps as colorful wallpaper.
Honduras issued the fewest Seebeck stamps of any of the contracting nations. In all Seebeck printed 49 postage stamps and 22 official stamps. The officials were never used to carry mail and were never seen in Honduras but for postings by Seebecks's agents. They were made in the United States and are a part of Yankee entreprenuership. Seebeck produced 18 pre-stamped envelopes, 16 wrappers and 10 post cards. (See Stationary.) On October 26, 1893, Honduras became the first nation to withdraw from the deal.
The above scan is from the official publication of the deal between Seebeck and the Honduran government. It states that all previous stamps are now void and any remainders will be given to Seebeck for his personal use.
A nice mint set of Honduran Seebecks can be of interest because they really are handsome stamps. On the other hand it is highly unlikely that a given Seebeck stamp ever left the shores of the United States.
1890 Arms of Honduras Issue
Printed by the Hamilton Bank Note and Engraving Company of New York, whose major business was printing hundreds of millions of tickets for the New York City transportation system, Seebeck was an employee of sorts of the Hamilton company. He produced bogus printing "trials" in all colors of the rainbow for his stamp dealer customers. These were sold to dealers in addition to over a million leftovers.
Common Cancels
Less Common Cancels
Uncommon Cancels
Very early OMSR postmark of the Trujillo stylw along with a very early usage of the MS star cancel. This March, 1890 cover is from the St. John correspondance in the Anderson collection.
The MS cancel was popular on the previous Morazán issue but this is a very early usage of the twin double circles of the CMD postmark. It will be seen for only three years and used only in Tegus.
The MCM triple ring cancel was also used on the Morazán issue as was the OMSA double oval cancel.
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-Anderson Catalog of Classic Honduran Stamps by Craig Anderson © 2013.
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