1d Platypus with REVENUE overprint

[bill]

This note draws attention to the 1d Platypus overprinted REVENUE with reference
to the version with the old TAS watermark showing TAS between two parallel lines.
This paper was ordered late 1870 from London and arrived in 1871.

We usually see this stamp with the later TAS watermark (no pair of parallel lines to
bound the letters of TAS). An article in The Courier, No. 35, on REVENUE overprints
noted that there were 10,740 of the 1d destroyed on 2 July 1902. This represents a
rather large number of stamps destroyed with much smaller numbers destroyed for
other values. No reasons were offered for such a large number of 1d stamps being
destroyed at the time of writing that article.

It seems likely that the paper used for those defective stamps was the old paper in
the order dated 1870. After some 30 years in storage, it may have deteriorated to
the extent that it was no longer suitable for printing stamps. Nevertheless, it was
used to print some 1d stamps as TAS watermarked paper was already running short
by 1902. Why not use up old paper as an emergency measure and save good paper
for later use?

The 1d Platypus with the old watermark is not often seen but it was already listed
in the Gibbons catalogue as from the 1904 edition as a postal fiscal.

It would be interesting to determine dates of use, despite the difficulty of reading
the dates in the blue of the stamp.