Description

Interesting lot featuring various examples of the Isle of Canna’s only local stamp issue, produced in 1958 and depicting two of the island’s most distinctive features – Compass Hill, and a pair of the Manx shearwaters that breed there.

The stamp is denominated as “two shearwaters” – in the style of Lundy with its puffins – and was sold for 1d. As illustrated in this tweet, the perforation of this issue was quite rudimentary, so the stamps do always vary slightly in their size and cropping.

This particular lot, as shown in the picture, comprises:

• One typical perforate stamp (top left)
• As above, but with significant misperforation that results in the bottom margin being missing, and the vertical dimension of the stamp being 3mm less than usual (bottom left)
• A rarely seen partly imperforate strip of four, with perforations missing between the individual stamps (right).

There are unfortunately some defects, so the lot is priced accordingly. All the stamps include some rust spots, and the strip features some crinkling, especially visible from the gum side. There is also a small tear to the blank margin at the top of the strip (but not any of the stamps themselves).

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

About Canna

Canna (Eilean Chanaidh) is the westernmost island of the Small Isles archipelago, in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland to the south of Skye. The island is 4.3 miles (6.9 km) in length, and one mile (1.6 km) wide.

While under the ownership of laird John Lorne Campbell, the island produced a single stamp, in 1958, depicting Compass Hill and a pair of the Manx shearwater birds for which Canna is well known. The stamp served no postal function, but was sold for 1d to raise funds for the Shipwrecked Mariners' Society, though its use on mail to "authenticate the origin of our letters and parcels" was encouraged by Campbell.

50,400 stamps were printed in sheets of 60 by George Waterston & Sons Ltd in Edinburgh, with the original invoice retained in the archives of Canna House, Campbell's former home.

John Lorne Campbell gifted the island to the National Trust for Scotland in 1981, and continued to live there until his death in 1996; his widow, Margaret Fay Shaw, remained at Canna House until her own death, aged 101, in 2004.

The island, which retains a small permanent population, can be visited; it is served by a Calmac ferry from Mallaig on the mainland several times a week.