Description

Perforate set of four definitive stamps for Puffin Island (Ynys Seiriol), issued in 2024, and depicting the bird after which the island is named.

The issue features three £1 stamps and one NVI (but sold at £1) – creator Martin Husband said he was unable to decide on just one font type and colour.

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

About Puffin Island (Ynys Seiriol)

Known in Welsh as Ynys Seiriol, this particular Puffin Island is a privately owned uninhabited island off the eastern tip of Anglesey.

It is not to be confused with the entirely different Puffin Island, in the Thames estuary, for which Darin Jackson has created local stamps since 2005.

Issues for Ynys Seiriol are instead the brainchild of Martin Husband, of Anglesey Stamps, who has released a handful of sets bearing the island’s name since 2016. They are purely Cinderella stamps, with no local postal function.

Two centuries ago, the population of birds after which Puffin Island is named numbered an incredible 50,000 in an area of just 69 acres.

Unfortunately, a shipwreck in the 1800s brought brown rats to the island, and as their population exploded, that of the puffins – whose eggs and chicks the rats consume – was almost wiped out. Happily, the rats were finally eradicated in 1999, since when the puffin population has staged a modest recovery – though at around 30, it is unlikely to ever return to the past peak.