The Madrid-Manila flight coincided with the start of the First Flight Cover collecting. The Army Air Corps started making flights to different locations throughout the Philippines and the cover makers preferred the Madrid-Manila overprinted stamps, but the Post Office stock was exhausted. Since this was an overprint and not a surcharge, it was not illegal to print your own overprint. Local dealers provided home made overprints to fill the need of cover collectors.

Three panes, 300 stamps, of the 16c olive green Sampson stamps were mixed in with the 16c Dewy stamps, they received the purple overprint. One pane of the 26c blue green, perf 12, watermarked was mixed in with the 26c blue green, perf 11, unwatermarked and received the purple overprint.

Two errors occurred during the second printing. The first, when the count was made of the 16c Dewey run it was fount to be one pane short, so another pane was requested from the Bureau of Posts. When the pane arrived the press was inked in the scarlet red color, so this pane was overprinted in the scarlet red color, The pane was also a 16c Sampson, olive bistre, 100 stamps were overprinted. The final error is a constant one, the cliche in position 89 has the left side of the propeller broken off. Both colors of the second printing have this error.

The key to the identification of this overprint is the center of the propeller, see Fig 4.1 and Fig. 4.2, , it is a well proportioned five point star in the genuine overprint. The detail is such that it is almost impossible to forge.

The second check point is the date 1926, the numerals are of the same size and in a straight line, The third check is the dash between MADRID and MANILA it is a short dash, almost square, and it doesn't touch the D ore M. In the forgeries, the star is replaced with a plus, a cross, an x, a line or just a blob, hi the date the numerals are uneven and sometimes the 6 is smaller than the others. The dash may be a dot or a longer dash which touches the letter D or M.