The Isle of Man issued revenue stamps from 1889 to 1976. There were many general duty revenue issues as well as national insurance stamps.
Contents
1889-1966
Since the Isle of Man was politically separate from the United Kingdom, it had a different fiscal system and did not use British revenues (although it used British postage stamps). Revenues were needed to pay fees connected to transfers of land and property. The first series came out in 1889, and they were British revenue keytypes portraying Queen Victoria with the inscription ISLE OF MAN in the bottom tablet. From 1894 these stamps were surcharged with the same face value in black in order to make the denomination easier to see. Similar keytypes were used for many years, with stamps bearing the portraits of the following monarchs:
Most of these stamps are hard to find, and some of them command quite high prices. In fact, the Isle of Man's rarest stamp is the King George V £5 from 1921. According to Barefoot, only seven used examples exist.
1966-1976
A new set of revenue stamps was issued on 5 July 1966. Unlike the previous issues, these weren't keytypes, but each value had a different colour and design:
Although the Isle of Man switched to decimal currency in 1971 along with the United Kingdom, the first decimal series of revenues was not issued until 15 October 1974 as the previous issue remained in use. The new issue had four values:
These replaced the 1/-, 2/-, 5/- and 10/- values of the previous issue. Meanwhile, the pound values remained in use.
Except from the £5 value from 1966, the above stamps had no indication they were revenue stamps, so people were using them for postal use as well. To prevent this, some stamps of the previous issues were overprinted REVENUE and these were issued on 18 June 1975. The overprint was applied to the following stamps:
On 1 November 1976, a set inscribed ISLE OF MAN REVENUE to prevent any postal use was issued. It was the last set of Isle of Man revenues ever issued, the all seven stamps showed coins, heraldic symbols, ships or castles.
Unlike the keytypes, the 1966-1976 issues were sold to collectors in presentation packs or as singles in mint condition, and therefore unused stamps are more commonly found. However they are still harder to find in used condition.
National Insurance
Isle of Man also had its own National Insurance stamps. All of these consisted of British National Health Insurance, Health & Pensions Insurance or National Insurance stamps overprinted ISLE OF MAN. Hundreds of these were issued from the 1920s to the 1970s but many of them are rare.