Missionaries, money and murder

by Frank McAlonan



In 1820 American Missionaries voyaged to the Sandwich Islands, later renamed the Hawaiian Islands, to convert its natives to Christianity. By 1850, as the missionary presence grew and settlers and traders arrived from the United States, there was a serious need for a regular postal service.


At 2,300 miles to the west of San Francisco, Hawaii was well positioned to provide fresh water, vegetables, fruit and meat and to do repairs for U.S. and foreign ships involved in the growing trade with Asia. Mail delivery could no longer be left to the goodness and charity of passing ship captains. Residents petitioned King Kamehameha III to establish a postal system with regular dispatch and receipt of mail.


The original missionaries are long gone, their names footnotes in the history books. But the stamps they used to prepay letters written to family, friends and missionary societies are among the most fabled and valuable of the worlds stamps.

Missionaries, as Hawaiis first stamps are known, are what collectors call classics -- stamps issued in extremely limited quantities prior to the establishment of the Universal Postal Union in 1875. It is estimated that less than 200 Missionary stamps on or off cover have survived.

In the 1850s the growing popularity of pre-paid letters, letters the addressees didnt pay postage for on arrival, sparked the production of thousands of examples of a given stamp. Prior to that time pre-paying a letter with a postage stamp was unusual. Hence the limited amount of stamps produced and their rarity today. The rarest of the Missionaries is the two cent blue; scarce enough to cause a murder.

This is the story:

The two cent Missionary stamp, formerly in the Count Ferrary and Henri Burrus collections, cost a previous owner his life; a prominent philatelist murdered in his Paris apartments in the 1890s. The case puzzled the police because the murderer had left a considerable amount of money behind. In a half-opened desk draw they found gold coins and a diamond studded watch. A valuable Hawaiian stamp collection was prominently displayed and apparently intact. As the victim, Gaston Leroux, had no known enemies and nothing appeared stolen, the police lacked both a suspect and a motive.

A detective working the murder case knew stamps, and with no leads to go on, he decided to compare Lerouxs Hawaiian stamp collection against its written inventory. Its not often that a homicide detective can enjoy stamps on the job.

He found the star of the collection was missing, the two cent Missionary of 1851. Following this lead, he visited the Parisian stamp dealers that might have occasion to carry high priced stamps to see if he could locate it and determine who had sold it. No dealer had the stamp nor admitted to selling it.

Among Lerouxs circle of friends a fellow philatelist, Hector Giroux, came under suspicion. By posing as an avid stamp collector the detective gained an introduction to Giroux and won his confidence. On a visit to the suspects apartment the conversation turned to rare stamps and to the Hawaiian Missionaries. The two cents issue, being the great rarity it was, came up in the conversation and Giroux, as eager as any collector to show off his better items, brought out an album containing the missing stamp from Lerouxs collection.

Giroux was brought in for questioning. After failing to give a credible explanation of how he had acquired the stamp, he was arrested, charged with murder and brought to trial. Under repeated questioning he eventually broke down and confessed that he murdered his friend because of Lerouxs refusal to sell him the two cents Missionary that would have completed his Hawaiian collection. Giroux was hanged.

Only 26 covers bearing Missionary stamps are known, and only one surviving cover bears the two cent stamp. It sold in 1995 for $2,100,000. Known as the Dawson cover, it was found in the furnace of an abandoned tannery in 1905. The building was being converted for another use and the original owners had been burning up old records. A janitor who knew a little about stamps spotted the cover in the furnace among some unburned papers. He also found the only known multiple of any Missionary stamp on a second cover addressed to Ms. Dawson; today its in the National Postal Museum in Washington. A strip of three 13 cent stamps are on it overpaying the 35 cent rate for a 1.5 ounce letter.

Before Hawaii had a postal system letters were carried to East Coast ports by ship captains as a favor, or more typically for two cents per letter. Without stamps or rate markings Hawaiian letters are known by their contents or docketing notations (date sent, received and replied to) written on the covers after delivery.

In 1850 the Hawaiian Islands signed a Treaty of Friendship and Commerce with the United States. According to article 15 of the treaty Hawaiian mail would be entered into the U.S. mail system at U.S. domestic rates. Hawaiis first postmaster, Henry Whitney, had the Missionaries printed to prepay the foreign mail charge to the US. They were done at the Government Printing Office where the local newspaper, the Polynesian, was printed. Four typeset denominations of the stamps were crudely printed on a small hand operated press used to make business cards.

The two cent rate paid the Hawaiian portion of the newspaper rate and the five cent rate covered Hawaiis charge to carry mail from the Honolulu post office to a waiting ship in the harbor. If only five cents was paid the letter arrived in San Francisco, California, U.S. postage unpaid.

If the sender wanted to prepay the U.S. and Hawaiian postage charge, he bought a 13 cent stamp. The 13 cent rate included Hawaiis 5 cent foreign mail charge to carry a single weight letter out to the ship, two cents to pay the ships captain for carrying the letter from Hawaii, and the 6 cent rate to carry the letter from San Francisco to the East Coast of the United States via Panama. There was a problem with the 13 cent value.

Since the stamp said Hawaiian postage at the top, clerks at the receiving office in San Francisco were confused and thought U.S. postage was owed, so they were charging recipients postage due. To solve the problem Whitney had the stamp reprinted in early 1852 with H.I. & U.S.
Postage at the top.

The recently issued U.S. Missionaries Souvenir Sheet portrays the four stamps and the Dawson cover, all of which were sold from the fabulous Honolulu Advertiser newspapers collection in 1995 by Seigel Auction Galleries in New York City.

At the turn of the 19th century Mekeels Stamp Newspaper ran surveys to find out what were the most popular countries to collect. Hawaii consistently was at the head of the list. When Henry Whitney visited Boston, Massachusetts, where many of the Hawaiian church leaders came from, he was lionized, much to his surprise. To this day Hawaii ranks high on collectors lists.

The Missionary stamps were printed on thin and brittle pelure paper. Almost all the stamps have varying degrees of damage and most have been repaired, except for the Grinnells.

The Grinnell hoard of 51 Missionary stamps sits in the vaults of the Royal Philatelic Society in London awaiting expertising. The cache surfaced in 1919 after being found in a sermon book of a seacaptain who had stopped in Honolulu in 1853, or so the story goes. Many of the leading experts of the day declared them forgeries.

Virgin find of Hawaiian Missionaries. Very important. Come at once, read a telegram from Bertram Poole of Los Angeles to fellow stamp dealer John Klemann in New York on November 22, 1919. Poole asked $100,000 for them, ultimately settling on a price of $65,000 for 43 stamps. Klemanns principal backer was one of the greatest stamp collectors of all time, Alfred Caspary, who had backed him with $50,000.

Caspary chose sixteen of the stamps and paid $75,000 for them on December 13th. Two days later Caspary told Klemann he was convinced all the stamps were fakes, and the dealer returned his money to him. Klemann in turn sued Grinnell to get his money. The case went to trial in 1922. Grinnell, ignoring testimony that the stamps were forgeries, argued the dealer had bought the stamps without warranty.

Experts testified that the postmarks, although similar to those on genuine stamps, were not the same, and that the stamps were produced using stereotyping or photoelectrotyping. The judge declared them forgeries.

In subsequent examinations experts have noted the paper varieties among the Grinnell Missionaries did not match up with the known paper used to print genuine Missionaries. Proponents argue paper varieties are a natural occurrence with multiple printings.

Update March 2009:

The prestigious Royal Philatelic Society in London has again ruled that the Grinnells are counterfeit. In spite of having the decision go against them the heirs of the original owners are not wholly displeased with the society's findings as affirmed in their (the heirs) press release.

The press release states: ‘After two years of study and philatelic expertisation of unprecedented duration and complexity, the Expert Committee recently informed us that they have rejected several of the major, decades-long counterfeit allegations against the Grinnell Missionaries, but still ruled that, in their opinion, the stamps are forgeries. A formal report by the Royal Philatelic Society London is expected to be published in
the London Philatelist early next year.

Despite the decision, the present owners declare themselves ‘delighted and optimistic about the significant progress now made in overturning the earlier, incorrect evidence that some philatelists have repeatedly used as the basis for claiming them forgeries. We appreciate’, they continue, ‘the extensive work of the Expert Committee and their recognition that time-honoured, but absolutely mistaken beliefs about the Grinnells’ characteristics have been in error.’

Nevertheless they are ‘surprised’ that the Expert Committee ‘presented new interpretations leading to the opinion that they are forgeries’ and plan to continue research, because they ‘respectfully believe the Expert Committee’s forgery interpretation and conclusion should be challenged by further study.’

The Hawaiian Missionaries still have secrets to tell.