Download St. Pierre and Miquelon wartime overprints We all know the

St. Pierre and Miquelon wartime overprints
We all know the interesting stamps issued in St. Pierre and Miquelon, and were
overprinted as world war ІІ was coming to a near end. Not many know the interesting
story behind them.
History tells us that Vice Admiral Muselier arrived in London by flying boat from
Gibraltar on June 30, 1940. Muselier was the only male member of his family to survive
the carnage of the First World War and would be the only one of fifty flag officers in the
French admiralty to answer General de Gaulle’s call for resistance in the Second World
War. He was formally named to command the Free French Naval Force and Merchant
Marine on October 27, 1940. One source credits Muselier with instituting the use of the
Cross of Lorraine to distinguish his ships from those of Vichy, though de Gaulle credits
Muselier’s assistant Captain Thierry d’Argenlieu with suggesting its use as a symbol for
the entire movement.
Free French headquarters in London seethed with turmoil between right wingers and
supporters of the leftist Popular Front. Each accused the other of spying for Vichy.
During de Gaulle’s absence from London for the Dakar expedition, the rightists gained
control of the Free French security apparatus and forced Andre Labarthe, former Socialist
deputy, out of the movement. Muselier interceded in with the General upon his return.
The General refused to restore Labarthe but eventually sacked the head of security, a man
known as, "Howard". Howard retaliated. Four letters purportedly authored by General
Rozoy, air attach‫ י‬at the French embassy in London, and since repatriated, revealed that
Muselier had tipped off Vichy to the embarkation of the Dakar expedition. He promised
to send the submarine Surcouf back to a Vichy controlled port and had accepted bribes to
dissuade French sailors from signing up with Free France. The letters were delivered to
British intelligence. Muselier was arrested by Scotland Yard on January 2, 1941 and held
for a week before de Gaulle could convince the British that the letters were forged.
Howard and his forger, a man known as Collin, confessed and the admiral was released.
de Gaulle was convinced the episode was the work of MI5 and Muselier was convinced it
was the work of de Gaulle.
Muselier precipitated a second crisis amongst the Free French movement in midSeptember, 1941. The Admiral began to chafe under the one-man rule of de Gaulle
telling friends in the British Admiralty that he was of the opinion that the General was
suffering from megalomania. Muselier demanded the formation of an executive council
of which he would be the head and de Gaulle the figurehead. The General’s response was
to form a council excluding Muselier at which point the Admiral threatened to leave the
movement and take his forces with him or turn them over to British control. De Gaulle
gave Muselier 24 hours to end his mutiny or to be replaced at this point Churchill and
Anthony Eden stepped in to mediate. Formation of the French National Committee with
de Gaulle as president was announced on September 25th. Muselier was given a
subordinate position on the body.
Muselier’s insubordinate ways continued. In December he was ordered to lead a small
task force from Halifax, Canada to St. Pierre and Miquelon and liberate those islands
from Vichy control. Muselier took it upon him to inform the Canadians and the American
embassy in Ottawa of his intentions. The Americans voice objection, having that very
day concluded an agreement with Vichy for the neutralization of French possessions in
the Western Hemisphere. Muselier proceeded to inform the U.S. ambassador that he was
calling the mission off. de Gaulle again ordered the expedition to proceed and this time
the Admiral obeyed. Saint Pierre and Miquelon were duly liberated on Christmas Eve
1941.
General de Gaulle duly honored the hero of St. Pierre who returned to London on
February 28, 1942. Then things turned sour. The General suggested Muselier lead an
expedition to liberate Madagascar but asked that he first fire a close aide whom de Gaulle
suspected of plotting against him. The Admiral had had enough. He attended a meeting of
the French National Committee on March 3 at which he announced once again that he
was resigning and taking his forces with him. De Gaulle requested Muselier’s arrest but
the British made no response. The Admiral continued his defiance and called for the Free
French Navy to go on strike. This was too much for the British who dropped all
objections to Muselier’s ouster. Admiral Auboyneau assumed leadership of the Free
French Navy on March 23, 1942.
Muselier returned to the fray in early June 1943, during negotiations for the formation of
a unified French government in Algiers. General Giraud feared an outbreak of proGaullist demonstrations and appointed the Admiral to post of Prefect of Police for
Algiers. Giraud and de Gaulle managed to resolve their differences and Muselier faded
into obscurity once again.
After the Christmas 1941 invasion and occupation of St. Pierre and Miquelon by the Free
French Forces under Muselier, there was a real shortage of foreign exchange to enable
the islands to purchase supplies, now that the Vichy administration was no longer able to
transmit funds to the islands. One source of information states that the shortage of foreign
exchange was most critical during the early weeks after liberation. Despite frantic
telegrams to de Gaulle, urgently requesting a minimum of $80,000 from the "Caisse
Centrale de la France Libre", little immediate assistance was forthcoming from London.
The most celebrated source of revenue came therefore from the sale of overprinted
postage stamps. Responsibility for this undertaking was entrusted to Marcel Benda, a
Free French hanger-on associated with the Montreal newspaper " Le Jour". Whether
through ignorance or otherwise, he botched the operation badly, creating something of a
scandal in philatelic circles. Moreover, part of the proceeds undoubtedly found their way
into the pockets of some of those on the inside. The whole sorry mess was not cleaned up
until the arrival in March 1942, of Henri Gauthier, a qualified philatelist and Free French
leader from Ottawa.
Stamps worth $60,000 on the market were sold at their face value for $7,000. Gauthier
sold the remainder with a face value of $3,000 for $34,000. Another series, specially
surcharged "Oeuvres sociales" with a face value of $8,000 were (according to Muselier)
sold on behalf of the newly established Committee on Social Assistance for nearly
$100,000.
Numerous inquiries were held in both Canada and St. Pierre, but no one has ever been
able to find out for sure if Benda may have been involved in the subsequent overprinting
of wartime issues. These issues caused such a headache to collectors over the years, and
more so in these days when many of these reprints are turning up in auction houses in
Europe and North America. As time goes by, those who might be able to shed light on
these affairs are no longer alive. There is an article by Marcelle M. Halliss called the
"The Story behind the Free French Overprints" which appeared in the "S.P.A. Journal",
the magazine of the Society of Philatelic Americans. In this article she recounts the story
of how her husband accompanied the Free French liberation fleet and how he met Mr.
Marcel B. (as she calls him) who was to take over the island newspaper and was assigned
to look after Propaganda and Public Relations. She tells in that article that his first job
was to print the "Proclamation" and he went to the Government Printing Office, where he
found a complete printing equipment for postal uses, a stock of stamp sheets, some essay
proofs etc. Now, fortunately, Mr. B. (she never refers to his last name) was a philatelist
and he realized at once the importance of overprints as a means of propaganda. .... There
was not one other complete set among all sheets in stock and Mr. B. being a stamp
collector was well aware of these unique overprints issued in small quantities. But the
Vice-Admiral (Muselier) was firmly against any businesslike dealings with the stamps
and declared them at once "Valeurs bloquees"(Frozen values).... In the meantime, when
the news of the overprints got around, the little Post Office of St. Pierre was swamped
with orders from dealers from U.S.A and Canada and the larger firms sent their buyers to
Halifax, Nova Scotia, from where they applied for the permit to land on the islands. They
were waiting with chartered planes - but the permits never came. The Vice-Admiral did
not want strangers on the islands for security reasons and on the other hand having
decided not to sell the stamps there was no point in having them come over.
In all that commotion my husband remembered suddenly my "orders" to bring some
stamps home but by now he needed a special authorization to enter the closed Post Office
and to buy everything he could get. As an "extra" for me Mr. B. gave him an Essay proof
of the Fr 1.75, consisting of a sheet of 25 stamps overprinted "5Fr." in a pale orange
instead of the regular red carmine....”
Again there are no more reports except that a copy of a letter came in to my hands from
Mr. R. Furn sent to Mr. K. Bileski - both parties were well known in the marketing of the
stamps of this period from St. Pierre and Miquelon. In this letter dated 1949, a mystery
seller had contacted Mr. Furn offering to sell an unknown quantity of the 55c. and 3frs.
overprints. As there was some doubt as to the genuineness of this offer, the mystery seller
stated that he knows that his stamps are genuine because his stamps were "issued at same
time through his service, because he was the man who gave the stamps to be overprinted
by the printer. He is not afraid about the expertise. And I think he is right. He wants to
come here if I have the cash money for him and if I pay the travel. I say O.K.....".
It should be noted that there were only 27 of the 55c and 45 of the 3frs. officially
overprinted, perhaps others of limited availability were also overprinted clandestinely as
old remainders were not destroyed until September 1942.
Mr. Bileski in his notes to the letter states:
" Whatever he took to the printer there was also the request to print more of certain
numbers. The printer went to his type supplies and set up the same format and did as he
was ordered. Not quite the same. Nothing matches the originals exactly! In 1991 a
quantity of errors and wrong color overprints came up in an auction. They fetched
enormous prices. I had no chance to examine them. Were they from the original printing?
Yes. Knowledgeable auctioneers are well aware of the difference between the first and
the clandestine job. So what are they? The answer is simple. They were never issued or
sold inadvertently to the public. In printing, errors do happen. The printer could also
experiment with different colors at the start of his work. A pane or two of such was put
aside. Errors would have been culled, one of two retained by the printer for reference and
the rest destroyed. Plenty of errors happen when a printer tries to overprint already
printed stamps. Most were destroyed. The public, the dealers, the speculators all got a
very clean lot of stamps, of the ISSUED STAMPS. And we know exactly, to the last
stamp overprinted, what was issued. It is all there, carefully itemized in the Saint Pierre
and Miquelon government publication, "Le Journal Officiel" for September 1941 and
February 1942. The errors and wrong colors? They are UNISSUED and if only small
quantities of such exist, they are worth a lot of money.
So there the mystery is. Was that visitor to Canada in 1949 Marcel Benda, making a
quick in and out journey to Canada after his deportation, trying to raise some possibly
quickly needed cash?
I'd like to know more, so if anybody can shed further light on this story please let us all
know. Meanwhile take care, philatelists, when offered those high priced varieties of the
wartime overprints of St. Pierre and Miquelon.