Description

1998 £1 miniature sheet issued under the Bernera name, marking the Chinese Year of the Tiger.

U/M / Unmounted Mint / MNH / Mint Never Hinged.

About Bernera

More than 2,000 (!) stamps inscribed "Bernera Islands" were issued between 1977 and 2000. The name refers to Great Bernera - a Scottish island of around eight square miles, linked to Lewis by a road bridge - and the much smaller 341-acre Little Bernera, which was famously gifted to, but turned down by, the National Trust for Scotland in 2012.

Bernera's stamps are understood to have been produced by the well-known stamp dealer Clive Feigenbaum, and they often bear a strong resemblance to those that he created for other islands such as Easdale and Gairsay.

Great Bernera has its own official Post Office branch, so the labels bearing the islands' name appear to be fantasy issues rather than stamps that perform a genuine local postal function.