Description

Interesting commemorative cover, produced by the Summer Isles Post Office in 1997, to mark the 1,400th anniversary of St Columba’s death. St Columba was a 6th-century Irish monk who founded a monastery on Iona, spreading Christianity in Scotland and becoming one of its most revered saints.

The design of the front of the FDC features an enlarged ghost facsimile of the 1961 Carn Iar ¼d stamp, and bears two copies of the 1PS stamp from the 1996 Summer Isles definitive issue, cancelled in blue on 9 June 1997; the 26p Royal Mail St Columba stamp, cancelled on the first day of issue (11 March); and the 5s 1961 Carn Iar stamp, marked with a special green handstamp. Only 500 individually numbered copies of the cover were produced, seemingly bearing one of the six Carn Iar stamps chosen at random.

There is an insert inside the cover featuring further information about the commemoration.

All the examples we have of this cover are in similarly good condition.

About the Summer Isles

Unlike a lot of the labels that purport to come from islands off the coast of Britain, Summer Isles stamps have always performed a genuine local postal function.

On 1 September 1970, due to the lack of an official postal service to and from the largest and only inhabited island, Tanera Mòr, the Summer Isles Estate was permitted to launch a private, year-round mail service to and from the mainland at Achiltibuie. Mail posted on the island has always had to bear both a Summer Isles stamp (for transportation to the mainland) and a Royal Mail stamp (for its onward journey).

Seventeen attractive stamp issues were produced between 1970 and 1986, before the service fell dormant until its relaunch under new ownership in 1996, marked by the appearance of a third definitive issue featuring a map of the islands. Further well-designed issues appeared on a near-annual basis until 2013.

The first new issue in three years - and the most recent to date - was produced in 2016, celebrating "Island Music".

After several years on the market, the island of Tanera Mòr was purchased by businessman Ian Wace in 2017, and is (as of 2025) still undergoing a programme of restoration that will see it "become an idyllic retreat capable of hosting up to 60 paying guests". We understand that a new post office has been built, but will not be operational again until the renovation of the island is complete.