THE 1946 MAVERICK YELLOW
SEAL
By Nemy L. Rivera
The
origin of this seal has not been clearly established. Immediately
after the Second World War, a crudely designed yellow seal made its
appearance, unannounced and hardly noticed. Its face design carried
the texts ”HELP / Give Enough / The Philippine / Tuberculosis
Society” together with the TB cross. The Philippine Tuberculosis
Society has never acknowledged responsibility for this issuance.
A
respected long time dealer / collector swore that he had personal
knowledge that these seals were issued and used in 1946. This seems
credible. It is improbable that the seals were issued in 1945, when
everyone, including the Society, was just starting to recover from
the devastation and dislocations wrought by the war. On the other
hand, the year of issue could not have been 1947, because the
Society has just issued its Christmas seals for that year. That
leaves 1946 as the most plausible date of issue.
The seal
is listed in Green’s Catalog under Philippine Islands as # 2A. Year
of issue was blank, although other details were complete, including
an accurate description of the “sheet” (#2A.x) as “3 x 2 tete beche
with horizontal and vertical gutters. PMS4.”. Author has so far
seen only one sample of this 4 ½” x 4 1`/16” pane. Even if one or
more samples will later surface, this whole pane could still well
be among the rarest of Philippine seals.