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Until the Philippines joined the Universal Postal Union (UPU) on May 1, 1877, the use of
Spanish-Philippine stamps was not accepted on mail to foreign countries
outside the Spanish empire. Very few overseas covers from the 1850s through
1877 to countries outside the Spanish empire were sent through the Manila Post Office.
To enable correspondence to be
sent to non-Spanish empire countries, stock of British Asian stamps from India, Straits Settlements and Hong Kong were maintained by local merchants for use on
foreign mail. The British Asian stamps were applied to overseas covers, which
were then hand-carried to a departing ship en-route to a British Port,
where they entered into the postal system and were accordingly cancelled. The
postal rates for the British Asian stamps applied in Manila were calculated from the British
port to its final destination.
For letters travelling through
the port of Hong Kong, the British Asian stamps were typically cancelled with
a black, oval ‘B62’ cancel.
Interestingly, a few
Spanish-Philippine stamps from the 1870s have been found with the Hong Kong ‘B62’ cancel, indicating that these stamps
were used on overseas mail instead of the British Asian stamps. This is
contrary to the ruling of not allowing covers addressed to non-Spanish empire
countries to be sent using Spanish-Philippine stamps until after May 1, 1877.
All overseas correspondence from May 1, 1877, regardless of destination, were
to be affixed with Spanish-Philippine stamps and cancelled at Philippine Post
Offices.
One possible explanation for the
presence of the Hong Kong ‘B62’ cancels on
the 1870s issues is that Philippine merchants may have run short of British
Asian stamps and instead used the available Spanish-Philippine stamps on mail
bound for non-Spanish empire countries. All known examples, (with one known
exception), do not show any Spanish-Philippine cancellations, indicating that
they most likely did not go through a Philippine Post Office, but were
instead delivered directly to an awaiting ship. It is assumed that the Hong Kong Post Office accepted these covers and
cancelled them with the ‘B62’ cancel, providing postal validity for these
covers.
The occurrence of the Hong Kong ‘B62’ cancel on Spanish-Philippine stamps
issued prior to May 1, 1877 is very scarce, with only two reported stamps
known. The ‘B62’ cancel also exists on other King Alfonso XII stamps issued
after May 1, 1877, but as to why or how these stamps obtained this
cancellation is not clear. No covers are known with this cancel
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