Honduras 1925 'Black Honduras' Provisional Airmail

An airline in the mountains

In 1922 Dr. Thomas C. Pounds contracted with the Honduran government to fly mail between the capital, Tegucigalpa, and the port of Puerto Cortes. By mule the trip took three to seven days. By air it would take two hours. Pounds called his company Central American Airlines.

A revolution delayed him when the United States limited shipments of planes to Honduras. Once politics settled, Pounds found backing from Juan Trippe, then running a commuter flight operation and later the founder of Pan American. In February 1925 Trippe sent a plane and a pilot, Sumner B. Morgan of upstate New York, who flew into Tegucigalpa in a seaplane fitted with special landing gear.

A local resident, Julio Ustariz, offered the use of his nearby airfield, and Pounds and Morgan lived at his hacienda while they planned the service. The airline lasted only about seven months before it failed.

Stamps made at the last minute

The first official airmail flight was set for May 1, 1925. At the last moment the government told Pounds that the special stamps he had been promised had not been produced. Instead it gave him a small number of obsolete 1915 Honduras stamps and authorized him to overprint them.

Pounds and Karl Snow, a jack-of-all-trades, used a very small hand-operated press to turn the old stamps into airmail provisionals. They worked in two sessions, one with red and black ink near the end of April and a second in blue ink a little later. The stamps were sold at post offices and at private locations, a common practice in Honduras.

The 25 centavos surcharge in black on the 10 centavos stamp is the 'Black Honduras.' How many were made is not recorded in the sources consulted.

Genuine or a trial?

Collectors did not learn of the stamp until 1927, when John Luff, the editor of a leading U.S. stamp catalogue, received four unknown stamps in the mail, which belonged to Ustariz. Luff saw that the surcharge matched genuine stamps but suspected it came from a trial printing, which would make it less valuable. He wrote to Ustariz implying it was counterfeit, and Karl Snow told Ustariz he did not remember printing the 25 centavos surcharge.

Days later Luff received 16 Honduran airmail stamps of 1925 from Raul Duron Membreno, a former Honduran postal official working as an agent for Luff's employer. They included a pair surcharged exactly like Ustariz's stamp. Membreno thought them genuine. Luff did not say so, but he did not return them either.

Three years later the dealer H.A. Robinette mailed Luff another 25 on 10 centavos stamp, whose owner said he had bought it at a post office. It was the first example that could not be tied to Pounds, which suggested the stamp had been genuinely issued rather than being a proof.

Stolen, lost, and one survivor

In 1933 Membreno's collection, with its pair of Black Honduras stamps, was stolen and never recovered, leaving two single stamps. The Ustariz copy apparently went from Luff to the dealer and author Bruechig. It seems at one point to have been on a cover, but it was removed, cleaned and regummed. It was last seen publicly at auction in January 2002. Afterward it was lost, left either in a New York City taxi or in a restaurant, and never recovered. Some collectors have speculated that an owner of both copies destroyed one to raise the value of the other.

The Robinette copy went to Dr. Philip Cole, who showed it in his grand award exhibit at the 1936 TIPEX show, where Stamps magazine called it the world's rarest airmail stamp. It sold for $11,500 in 1957, and on February 27, 1961, it sold at auction in New York for $24,500, the highest price paid for a single stamp at public auction in America at the time. Its owners have included Colonel E.H.R. Green and Liechtenstein.

In 1976 it was named one of the 'Aristocrats of Philately' at the Interphil '76 exhibition in Philadelphia. In January 2012 it was offered in New York in the Honduras section of the Santa Fe collection, estimated at $100,000. On January 11 it sold for $149,500. A companion exhibit collection of the 1925 airmail overprints brought $115,000, against a $25,000 estimate. The stamp is now owned by a U.S. stamp dealer.

The stamp itself

The surviving Black Honduras is unused, with a large part of its original gum, a hinge remnant and a stain. It is signed by the expert Herbert Bloch and carries a 1974 certificate from an expert committee.

The collector Henry Goodkind noted that it is unusual in having a recorded and documented history from its creation to its record sale.

Rarer than the Inverted Jenny

With one copy known, the Black Honduras is far scarcer than the famous U.S. Inverted Jenny; one account calls it 100 times rarer. Like the Jenny it belongs to the first years of airmail and has a story full of doubt and loss.

Its image has appeared on later stamps: Nicaragua reproduced it on an airmail stamp in 1976 and Honduras on one in 2000.

The numbers

Issue

1925 airmail provisional, prepared about late April 1925

Surcharge

25 centavos in black on the 1915 10 centavos

Printing

Overprinted on a very small hand-operated press by Pounds and Karl Snow

Known today

1 (a second lost after 2002, a pair stolen in 1933)

Condition

Unused, large part original gum, hinge remnant, stain

Certificate

1974 expert certificate; signed by Herbert Bloch

Timeline

1. 1915

   Honduras issues the stamps that will later be overprinted.

2. 1922

   Dr. Thomas C. Pounds contracts with the Honduran government to fly mail.

3. Feb 1925

   Juan Trippe sends Pounds a seaplane and pilot Sumner B. Morgan.

4. Apr 1925

   Pounds and Karl Snow overprint obsolete 1915 stamps on a small hand press.

5. May 1, 1925

   Scheduled date of the first official airmail flight.

6. 1927

   John Luff receives four of the stamps from Julio Ustariz and doubts them; Membreno sends a pair.

7. 1930

   Dealer H.A. Robinette reports a copy bought at a post office.

8. 1933

   Membreno's collection, including his pair, is stolen and never recovered.

9. 1936

   Dr. Philip Cole shows the Robinette copy at the TIPEX show.

10. 1957

    The Robinette copy sells for $11,500.

11. Feb 27, 1961

    It sells at auction in New York for $24,500, an American auction record for a single stamp.

12. 1974

    The stamp receives an expert certificate.

13. 1976

    It is named one of the 'Aristocrats of Philately' at Interphil '76 in Philadelphia.

14. Jan 2002

    The Ustariz copy is sold at auction, then lost in New York and never recovered.

15. Jan 11, 2012

    The surviving Black Honduras sells for $149,500 at auction in New York.

The world in 1925

• Jan 5, 1925

  Nellie Tayloe Ross becomes the first female governor in the United States, in Wyoming.

• Jan 27, 1925

  The serum run to Nome begins, carrying diphtheria antitoxin by dog sled across Alaska.

• Apr 10, 1925

  F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'The Great Gatsby' is published in New York.

• Jul 10, 1925

  The Scopes trial opens in Dayton, Tennessee.

• Jul 18, 1925

  Hitler publishes the first volume of 'Mein Kampf.'

• Nov 28, 1925

  The Grand Ole Opry begins as the 'WSM Barn Dance' in Nashville.

• Dec 1, 1925

  The Locarno Treaties are signed in London.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Honduras 1925 'Black Honduras' Provisional Airmail is number 39 of 100 in the stamps entries of the FLOAT 100. 82 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (81 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The editor who first saw the stamp suspected it was a trial printing and implied it was counterfeit.
• A pair of Black Honduras stamps was stolen with a collection in 1933 and never found.
• The only other single was left in a New York taxi or restaurant after a 2002 sale and never recovered.
• Its 1961 price of $24,500 was the highest ever paid at public auction in America for a single stamp at the time.
• Pounds' airline, the reason for the stamp, lasted about seven months.
• Nicaragua and Honduras have both reproduced the stamp on later stamps.