A fine quality of handmade paper which  always bore a watermark of some sort was used for all  regular issues of stamped paper.  Paper with many different watermarks was used during the more than two hundred and fifty years that this stamped paper was current.  Unwatermarked    paper was sometimes used for provisional issues which were printed in the Philippines, when one of the classes of the current regular issue was exhausted.
 

PROVISIONAL ISSUES OF PAPEL SELLADO DURING THE SPANISH REGIME

For reasons already explained there were a large number and variety of provisional   issues  which were  prepared  locally in  the  Philippines.  Articles 55, 56, 57, 64 and 65 of the Royal Cedula of February 12, 1830, prescribed the procedure for the preparation of provisional issues of stamped paper. These articles merely reaffirmed a procedure which had always been in force for many years prior to 1830. [30]

The RUBRICA which was an essential part of the stamp used for provisional stamped paper were simply the flourishes which usually adorned a signature. These flourishes form a part of the surcharge which appears below the stamp on Figure B.  It is to be noted that the “rubrica” of three different officials form a part of the surcharge.  Prior to about 1813 “rubrica” was not used as a part of the surcharges applied to provisional stamped paper.  Furthermore subsequent to 1888, “rubrica” was not included in the surcharge applied to provisional stamped paper (See Figures 9 and 10).

The  lower  Coat  of Arms and  label  of  Figure  1 is  a  surcharge of  the type which was used on provisional  stamped paper prior to about 1813.   In this case a  sheet of  regularly  issued stamped paper  of  the fourth class  for the biennial period of 1756-57 was surcharged to make it valid as stamped paper of the fourth class for the year 1759. A similar surcharge was also applied to the blank sheets  of  “common” paper  to  produce  provisional   stamped any required class. Or such a surcharge might be applied to any  one of  the  current  stamped  paper  in order to make  it valid as stamped paper of another class  and  price during  the same biennial  period.

Whenever there was a change of sovereign in Spain all of the current stamped paper of the Philippines was surcharged to make it valid for use during the new reign. An example of the surccharge,  translated into English, reads  “Valid for the Reign of Her Majesty Isabel the Second”.

Following the adoption for Spain in 1820 of a Constitution which limited the powers of the King,  the current stamped paper of the Philippines was surcharged “Habilitado, Jurada per el Rey la Constitucion de 9 de Mazo, 1820”  (Made valid,  the  King having attested  to  the Constitution of the  9th of  March,  1820).

In 1868, Queen Isabel II  was deposed in a revolution. On September 30,  1868,  the Revolutionary Committee which was temporarily in control of the Government ordered that, pending the release of a new issue of stamps which had been ordered from the  National  Stamp Factory, all current stamps should be  surcharged,  “HABILITADO POR LA NACION” (Made Valid by  the   Nation). Handstamping dies  for  this  purpose were made in Spain and  27 of  these  dies were  sent  to  Manila  on October  21,  1868. [31]  As a result Philippine stamped paper for the biennial period of 1868-69 were handstamped with “HABILITADO POR LA NACION” (Figure 9), either in December, 1868, or early in 1869.  Specimens of  this  paper  exist both with and  without  the  surcharge.

For more than two hundred years prior 1886, the stamped paper frequently not arrive from Spain until after the beginning of the biennial period for which it was to be used.  As a result it was very often necessary to surcharge the stamped paper of the preceding biennial period. In such cases, each class of stamped paper for the preceding biennial period was surcharged “Valga para los años de ____ y ____” (Valid for the years ____ and ____), or  “Habilitado para el bienio de ____ y ____” (Valid for the biennial period of _____ and ____). Several  forms  of. this  surcharge  are in Figure 10. 

This interesting specimen in a sheet of the regular issue of 1844-45, which  received  four  successive  surcharges  but  still  remained unused after  the  fourth  surcharged  had  been  applied.   It was  evidently kept Government warehouse for more than ten years after it originally became obsolete.  The  first surcharge was probably applied because of the non-arrival of the stamped paper for the biennial period of 1846-47.

Whenever any class of regular issue of stamped paper was exhausted before the end of its biennial period provisional stamped paper of the required class was prepared by one of the  following four procedures:

• a) If there was a surplus of any class of the current stamped paper such surplus might be surcharged with the desired class and price although the new price was frequently omitted. Thus SELLO 3 might be surcharged “Valga para el sello 4 de oficio” (Valid for the official 4th stamp).
• b) If obsolete stamped paper of the same class was available this might be surcharged for use during the current biennial period.  The surcharge in such cases might read “Valga para el bienio de ____” (Valid for the biennial period of ____).
• c) If obsolete stamped paper of a different class was available this might be surcharged for use during the current biennial period.  The surcharge in such cases might read  “Valga para el  bienio de ____”  (Valid  for  the  biennial  period of ____).
• d) If obsolete stamped paper of a different class was available this might be    surcharged for use as paper of the desired class for the current biennial period. The surcharge in such cases might read “Valga pars el sello4 de oficio en los años de ____” (Valid for the official 4th stamp during the years of ____)
• e)  If no regularly used stamped paper, either current or obsolete, was available  for       surcharging,  a handstamp  might  be  applied to blank sheets of “common     paper” in order to produce provisional stamped paper of the desired class.