Tiki postage stamps (USA 1972)

I just got some of these, so I thought I would mention it (while it's fresh in my mind) in case any tiki collectors don't know they exist. There's a U.S. airmail stamp from 1972 that features a carved tiki figure from the City of Refuge (a.k.a. Pu'uhonua o Honaunau National Historical Park) in Hawaii.

You can see a picture at the American Airmail Society website--eighth image down on this page:
http://www.americanairmailsociety.org/html/u_s__air_mail_stamps_1970-1979.html

I bought a mint sheet of 50 stamps (to someday frame as wall art) via eBay for $7 (which is only $1.50 over face value of the stamps) and a first-day cover (illustrated commemorative envelope with this stamp, cancelled on the day the stamps were published) for $1.95. (Well, plus shipping, which wasn't much.)

Does anybody know of other tiki stamps? Aren't there some from Fiji? Probably elsewhere too. . . .

Philatelically,
Erika

P.S. About the park: http://www.nps.gov/puho/

[ Edited by: Erika on 2003-06-03 13:25 ]

It's also nice to see that the Americans didn't discover the light bulb until 1973 - (see "Progress in Electronics".)

On 2003-06-03 14:29, tikifish wrote:
It's also nice to see that the Americans didn't discover the light bulb until 1973 - (see "Progress in Electronics".)

Hey! Those aren't lightbulbs, they're audions!

[ Edited by: Erika on 2003-06-03 14:51 ]

Chile and Rapa Nui have issued MANY Easter Island stamps over the past 5 decades. Many of these stamps feature moai, and other Rapa Nui art. I'll be featuring a half-dozen of them in Big Stone Head (the Easter Island book I am working on).

Here's the stamp...

Who'ave thought the post office was hip in the 70s.

Thanks for posting it.

On 2005-01-12 15:45, Raffertiki wrote:
Who'ave thought the post office was hip in the 70s.

Hip?

The 1970s was the very END of the original Polynesian pop era.

If they were hip, this stamp would have come out in the 1940s!
:)

Here are examples of two pieces from my collection that I really like, they are "First Day Cover" stamped envelopes in recognition of the National Parks Centennial:

The first time I was taken to Hawaii as a child, my mom arranged tours so that the first place we went was the City of Refuge. It was very foggy the day we went, and to see the ancient wooden figures loom up out of the swirling fog had a profound effect on me. All at once they were very old, yet a completely new image, scary, yet protective, angry or perhaps laughing. Every so often while the tour guide was telling us about the history of the City of Refuge, the tiki gods would disappear ever so slightly in the fog, as if they controlled how much they would allow themselves to be seen.

At the time these stamps came out, I remember that my mom bought loads of them to use for personal letters and cards, and conservative friends and family labeled her as a morally questionable eccentric due to the "risque" image of the tiki.

There is a third design out there for these First Day Issue stamps, I believe the color of the illustration is done in tan and brown tones.