GuamFirst Postage Stamp

The first time GUAM appeared on a stamp

Guam is a small island in the western Pacific, part of the Mariana Islands. Its history stretches from the indigenous Chamorro culture through more than 300 years of Spanish rule, later American administration, and a 31-month Japanese occupation during the Second World War. In 1898, following the Spanish–American War, Spain ceded Guam to the United States. A postal service was organised the following year. Rather than printing entirely new stamps, existing U.S. Bureau definitives were simply overprinted GUAM. Guam’s first issue therefore consisted of familiar American designs portraying presidents and other historical figures, transformed for use on the island by a single overprint. The issue also attracted the attention of famous philatelic forger François Fournier, whose imitation GUAM overprints later appeared in the Fournier Album of Philatelic Forgeries. A wonderfully simple provisional issue: one word was enough to turn ordinary U.S. stamps into Guam’s first postal identity.