1st National Boy Scout Jamboree — overprints

The Philippines marked its first National Boy Scout Jamboree on 23 April 1954, the opening day of the camp, not with new designs but by overprinting two stamps already in stock. Both carry the same black legend, FIRST NATIONAL BOY SCOUTS JAMBOREE, arched over the design, with APRIL 23-30, 1954 straight beneath it. Domfil catalogues them as 954.1 and 954.2, describing both simply as «Sobrecarga / Surcharge».

The 5 centavo red is the 1952 Marcelo H. del Pilar commemorative, the arch of the overprint curving around the portrait of the propagandist and journalist (Domfil 954.1, Scott PH 608, Michel PH 573, overprinted on Scott 509). SOSOW records 1,000,000 overprinted. The 18 centavos on 50 centavos green is the Colonnade of Palm Trees design of 1947, where the overprint is joined by a surcharge: a bold 18 struck over the original value at the upper left and again at the lower right (Domfil 954.2, Scott PH 609, Michel PH 574, on Scott 592). Only 300,000 of this one were prepared, which makes it much the scarcer of the two.

The basic stamps had been recess-printed by the American Bank Note Company; the Philippine Bureau of Printing applied the overprints. Perforation is line 12. Further references are Yvert PH 425–426 and Stanley Gibbons PH 758–759. The two values are catalogued here in rising face-value order.