Our Autumn 2025 auction series includes a specialised catalogue of Ireland which features the “Bokhara” collection of Irish postal history (part II) and the Madigan collection of Irish overprints (part I). This article will highlight one of the most iconic stamps of Ireland, which was among the first issue of 12 definitive stamps printed in 1922-23 issued by the Irish Free State; the 2d “Map of Ireland”.
Although it is a very common stamp, in 1935 the Ireland postal administration ordered and issued an experimental variant, which were perforated horizontally but not vertically in order to make up into coils to make them readily dispensable by mechanised dispensing machines. Because of the shared design it appears identical to the first 2d value definitive stamp issued on 6 December 1922, which means we get a lot of disappointed people contacting us thinking they have a rare stamp! Only around 20 mint examples are known and only a handful of usages on card or envelope.
It was first recognised in 1937 but not acknowledged by the philatelic catalogues until the Scott stamp catalogue listed it in 1952. Some debate as to the genuineness of this stamp took place in the Irish philatelic literature during the mid-1990s with a suggestion the stamp had been fabricated from a normal fully perforated stamp with a press. This hypothesis was debunked by Foley and Ian Whyte, a Dublin stamp dealer, who both claimed such a process would damage the stamp and be scientifically impossible. Archived documents were also found that confirm the stamp was ordered and issued by the Irish postal administration in 1935.
Our Ireland auction features the one of two known examples sent to a foreign destination both by the same sender to Austria, lot 60404, illustrated above. Two articles in the Éire Philatelic Association journal “the Revealer” (vol. 63 no. 3) by David MacDonnell and Robert Benninghof explain the background of the sender of this card, which sheds some light on why so many of the used examples of this stamp are known used in the same town of Naas.
Another rarity of this issue is lot 60400, a strip of four on piece tied by the large type double-circle “LOCH GORMAN / 17.VI.1936” cds, used in combination with paste up coils 1/2d and 1d, which is the second largest multiple of this stamp recorded.
