The Drama of the Grinnells Continues. The saga of the Grinnell Missionary stamps is a long and dramatic one. From the pages of an old prayer book locked away in a battered trunk, to a courtroom filled with witnesses for the prosecution and a judge’s verdict of “forgeries,” to a high-tech laboratory in the United Kingdom, the Grinnells have journeyed a very long way. And perhaps they had already survived an even longer journey – one which began over 150 years ago in another kingdom – the Kingdom of Hawaii. When stamp collector George Grinnell was given a few dozen stamps by an old gentleman he had just met, he suspected they were precious early issues of the Hawaiian Islands, but little did he know what lay before him. Accusations of fraud, a lengthy lawsuit, the stain upon his reputation, the rest of his life spent trying to clear his name and prove the authenticity of the stamps which came to be known simply as… the “Grinnells.” In this booklet, you’ll be privy to the results of years of research by several people on the Grinnell Missionaries: The Arrigos, descendants of George Grinnell, give an update on their forty-plus years of digging for the truth; Patrick Culhane, great-grandson of Charles Shattuck, from whom George Grinnell obtained the stamps 85 years ago, gives his response to the Royal Philatelic Society opinion on the Grinnells (Appendix); Dick Celler, expert plater of early U.S. stamps and objective researcher, shares the results of his five month, in-depth study – which yielded no proof that the stamps were forgeries. And finally, the late Varro Tyler, expert on stamp forgeries and the individuals who create them, in whose opinion the stamps were authentic. In our first booklet on the Grinnell Hawaiian Missionary stamps, created for the second Maynard Sundman Lecture at the National Postal Museum in 2003, we presented both sides of the story. Now, though we realize no one may ever prove with certainty how those stamps came to rest in the prayer book in Charles Shattuck’s home, and that there may always be unanswered questions, we would like to share with stamp collectors the progress which has been made on behalf of the Grinnells. With that in mind, we present The Case for The Grinnells. I hope you enjoy reading about the most intriguing philatelic mystery of all time. Don Sundman President, Mystic Stamp Company May 4th, 2006 3
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