Description

First day card, issued on 1 October 1969 to mark the “opening of the first official Post Office on Herm Island by the Guernsey Post Office Board”. The card bears a Guernsey 4d definitive cancelled with a special “Herm Island” handstamp, sent to an address on Guernsey.

Herm’s own stamps were no longer valid from this date, as explained in the statement on the reverse side of the card:

“After more than twenty years, the Tenant of Herm Island, Major Peter Wood, has handed over responsibility for the administration of the Postal Service between Herm and Guernsey to the Guernsey Post Office Board. From 1st October, 1969 Guernsey stamps will be the only ones valid for use on mail despatched from Herm, and so begins a new and exciting phase in Herm’s Postal History.”

About Herm Island

Herm Island, which is one of the smaller Channel Islands, and within the Bailiwick of Guernsey, produced its own stamps between 1949 and 1969.

Unlike many of the labels that appear to come from islands off the coast of the UK, those of Herm performed a genuine local postal function. Mail posted on the island, which did not have an official British post office, carried a Herm Island stamp for transport to the Guernsey mainland, and a UK stamp for the journey beyond. One publicity document, issued by Herm's tenant in 1962. reports that 150,000 pieces of mail were handled the previous year.

However, when Guernsey took over its own postal service in 1969, Herm was no longer allowed to issue and use its own stamps.