Category: Bahamas

Pineapples were grown in the Bahamas from the early 1700’s. It is believed that The Bahamas was the first country to produce pineapples on a commercial scale. Pineapples were not exported on a large scale until 1844.  During that year, it is believed that upward of 15,000 dozen were shipped to…

View More Bahamas Philately: 1980 Definitive Series – 25c Pineapple Cultivation

  The Prohibition Era in the United States began when the Eighteenth Amendment to the US Constitution. The Eighteenth Amendment was introduced in December 1917 and ratified as a part of the Constitution just over a year later. In accordance with the law, Prohibition began on January 17, 1920 with a…

View More Bahamas Philately: 1980 Definitive Series – 21c Bootlegging, 1910-1929

On the evening of 3 August 1492, Italian Christopher Columbus departed from Palos de la Frontera with three ships. The largest was a carrack, the Santa María, and the other two were smaller caravels, the Pinta and the Niña.  Columbus first sailed to the Canary Islands where he restocked provisions…

View More Bahamas Philately: 1980 Definitive Series – 1c Landfall of Columbus, 1492

A ceremonial mace is a highly ornamented staff of metal or wood, carried before a sovereign or other high officials in civic ceremonies by a mace-bearer, intended to represent the official’s authority On 27 April 1965, a day known in the Bahamas as “Black Tuesday”, Lynden Pindling, then Opposition Leader,…

View More Bahamas Philately: 1980 Definitive Series – 10c Ceremonial Mace

Edward Teach (1680–1718), better known as Blackbeard, was an English pirate who operated around the West Indies and the eastern coast of Britain’s North American colonies. Teach was a shrewd and calculating leader who spurned the use of violence, relying instead on his fearsome image to elicit the response that…

View More Bahamas Philately: 1980 Definitive Series – 3c Blackbeard the Pirate, 1718

Details Designer: John Waddington of Kirkstall Ltd, Leeds, England Printer: Format International Security Printers Ltd Process: Lithography Paper:  Watermark: Crown CA (Diagonal) Perf: 14.5 (comb) Cylinders: Printed in four panes separated by gutter between the four panes, and guillotined into two horizontal panes. 1A (Cyan) 1A (Yellow) 1A (Magenta) 1A (Black) 1A (Olive) : 1B (Cyan)…

View More Bahamas Philately: 1980 Definitive Series – $1 Modern Agriculture

The $2 stamp depicts Bahamasair and Cunard‘s Queen Elizabeth 2 (QE2). Bahamasair was established by the Bahamas Government and started operations on 17 June 1973 by acquiring the routes of Flamingo Airlines and the operations and routes of Out Island Airways. The government’s vision of several airlines discontinuing service to…

View More Bahamas Philately: 1980 Definitive Series – $2 Modern Air & Sea Transport

The Bahamas had very permissive banking regulations and became a major centre of Eurocurency along with the Cayman Islands. The Bahamas had no interest rate ceilings and requirements other than to have a prudent reserve and was referred to as the ‘Switzerland of the West.’ The stamp depicts the Central Bank…

View More Bahamas Philately: 1980 Definitive Series – $3 Banking in the Bahamas

Vendue House, situated on Bay Street, Nassau, was built some time before 1769. It was one-storey building, furnished only with a roof and rounded pillars and was erected for the convenience of traders selling their goods at Public auctions. Slavery in the Bahamas dated back several centuries. Slavery was legally…

View More Bahamas Philately: 1980 Definitive Series – 15c Slave Trading at Vendue House

The American Civil War (1861 –1865) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union (“the North”) and the Confederacy (“the South”), the latter formed by states that had seceded. The central cause of the war was the dispute over whether slavery would be permitted…

View More Bahamas Philately: 1980 Definitive Series – 18c Blockade Running (American Civil War)