1929 Colindres Issue
The printing was made by a rare combination of a line and half-tone block. The portraits appear in half-tone and the remainder of the design is line engraved. A "Primary" plate flaw can be easily seen in positions 3 through 10 of the 2 centavo stamp. Typographed by the government printing works in sheets of 10 and pin rouletted 11.5, 20,000 were released in February, 1929 in Tegucigalpa. The exact date they were first for sale in post offices is not certain, but the executive order to produce the stamps took place on February 2. Very few of the issue were used to post letters and thus used and on cover are unusal and much more valuable.
In an attempt to stop the traditional monopoly on stamp purchases as in the Paz Baraona issue, individuals were limited to purchases of 25 stamps. But the privileged class simply arranged for long lines of assistants to buy daily quotas and thus the monopoly was maintained.
At least 100 of each value were printed in transposed colors at the direction of Raúl Durón for his nefarious purposes. These were never disributed to the post office administration and had no postal use. Occasionally these cinderellas show up in the market. They were kept by highly-placed friends of Raúl Durón for speculation.
There are other ways to plot the stamps but the easiest is to study the soldering errors on the edges of the half-tone plugs. See the steps that follow.
The soldering around the elliptical perimeter on the 2c stamp is much better than the 1c stamp. Their plots are next.
Can you plot the sheet positions of the next four stamps?
Below showing a late usage of the Flag propaganda cancel.
Some imperforates were sneaked out from trash can.
Local usage cover with a CMS postmark unique to La Ceiba and a Peace propaganda cancel.
Local usage cover with CORR postmark unique to Tegus and a BH50 cancel. The handwriting is easily
recognized as that of Durón.
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"Explanation of the Commemerative Stamps" in El Cronista 7/15/29.
"Honduras: Inauguration of Colindres Issue" by Jose Mejia. Central American Newsletter, April 1990 pps. 196-202.
Honduras Report by Richard Washburn The Oxcart, fall 1997.
"Inauguration Issue of 1929 - a Platter's Paradise" by Wesley Waite in El Quetzal December 1991 pps. 57-61.
Jonathan Riehl Collection.
"Las Planchas de la Litografía Nacional" in Honduras Filatélica December, 1989 pps. 881-2.
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