Courtesy National Postal Museum In October of 1851, the Kingdom of Hawaii post office issued its first set of postage stamps in three denominations. These are Hawaii Scott 1, 2, and 3. George Grinnell’s Hawaiian Missionary Stamps: “America’s most fantastic philatelic story” By Ken Lawrence The Hawaiian Islands have beckoned and beguiled Americans for at least two centuries. By the mid-19th century, Protestant Christian missionaries had settled in that Polynesian paradise, located in the Pacific Ocean about 2,400 miles west and south of the continental United States, and had initiated religious and educational work among the indigenous residents. In those days the Hawaiian Kingdom was a constitutional monarchy whose independence had been recognized by the United States in 1842, led by King Kamehameha III. Nearly all early mail from Hawaii consists of missionaries’ letters and publications to America. For that reason the country’s first postage stamps, issued in 1851, are known as Hawaiian Missionaries. They are among the rarest and most famous stamps in the world. After the United States annexed Hawaii in 1898, Hawaiian stamps became philatelically even more important as issues of a U.S. possession. Today they are listed in the Scott Specialized Catalogue of United States Stamps and Covers as well as in the Scott Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue. In June of 1918, a California stamp collector named George H. Grinnell acquired at least two Hawaiian Missionary stamps 2¢ Missionary Type I: “P” of “Postage” indented 2¢ Missionary Type II: “P” of “Postage” directly beneath “H” Two types were printed of each denomination, which differ in small details. The word “Postage” is slightly indented below the word “Hawaii” on Type I settings. The first letters of both words are parallel at the left on Type II settings. 3
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