National Boy Scout Jamboree — Mamaia (overprint)

In 1932 Romania had issued a full semi-postal set for the National Boy Scout Jamboree (the designs later catalogued as Scott B31–B36 / Michel 437–442 — camp, signalling, tracking, cooking, King Carol II, and Carol II with Prince Michael). Two years later another national Scout jamboree was held at Mamaia, on the Black Sea coast.

Instead of engraving a new pictorial set, the post simply overprinted remaining stocks of the 1932 designs with «Mamaia 1934». SOSOW records the issue date as 8 July 1934. The overprint is black on three values (the 25+25 bani tent, 1+1 lei tracking, and 2+2 lei cooking) and gold on the other three (50+50 bani signalling, 3+3 lei Carol II, and 6+6 lei Carol II with Michael). Face values and surtax for Scouting stayed the same as in 1932.

Why overprint rather than a new design? It was a quick, economical way to mark the new jamboree and keep the Scout fund surcharge on sale: the 1932 plates and remaining sheets were already in stock, the motifs still read clearly as Scout scenes and royal patronage, and only the place-year needed updating. The same practice appears in many countries when a second event reuses a successful first issue. Catalogue numbers change (Scott B44–B49, Domfil 934.4–934.9) because the overprint creates a distinct emission, even though the underlying engraving is the Sibiu 1932 set. Print run is reported at 50,000 of each value — lower than the original 150,000 of 1932.

Proofs of the overprint in red also exist (SOSOW additional images): red «Mamaia 1934» on the 1 + 1 lei tracking design (issued OP black) and on the 3 + 3 lei Carol II (issued OP gold). Those red proof overprints are catalogued here as Wanted specials, not as the six issued values.

ATA 1964 lists the Mamaia / Brașov overprints on the previous Scout designs: black overprints on 25 b, 1 L and 2 L; gold overprints on 50 b, 3 L and 6 L, for the national Boy Scout Jamboree.