Description

First day cover (FDC) for the 2003 Pabay issue featuring four stamps depicting birds: herring gull (40p), puffin (60p), gannet (£1) and pintail (£1.50).

The Pabay stamps are cancelled with a “First Day of Issue – 14 Jan 2003 – Isle of Pabay’ handstamp, alongside a Royal Mail 1st class barn owl stamp bearing a corresponding first day of issue cancellation.

About Pabay

Poorly served by the GPO at the time, Pabay - a 360-acre island off the coast of Skye, just north of Broadford - issued its first local carriage labels in 1962, to cover the cost of transporting the inhabitants' mail to the mainland.

By the mid-1960s, however, many thematic Pabay issues were being produced, with more of an eye on collectors than the island's postal needs, and nearly 200 new stamps appearing between 1965 and 1971. Refreshingly, Pabay's own website admits that many of these issues featured "totally inappropriate subjects".

When Pabay was acquired by new owners in 1971, the island's stamp issuing programme reverted to more sensible volumes and themes, though since 1998 the number of new Pabay issues has again increased - albeit with attractive designs, and topics more relevant to the island's heritage and wildlife.

Pabay continues to release new issues, most recently in 2018.