The Lost Island of Topay

One of the forms of stamp-collecting for young collectors in the Nineteen Seventies was to try to get at least one stamp from as many different countries as possible, keeping a running total: most of us I think got into the 170+ range. This is now sometimes known under the abbreviation ASFE (A Stamp from Everywhere) and very keen collectors do not confine themselves to the countries of the Universal Postal Union, which currently has 192 members, and to other more or less ‘legitimate’ stamp issuing places. 

The most assiduous want a stamp from any piece of land for which a stamp has been issued, whether official or otherwise, including disputed territories, uninhabited islands and micro-nations in someone’s bedroom or caravan. They also count separately entities which only existed historically for a few months or years, such as the Free City of Danzig, or the Tangier International Zone.

In the Seventies, the main way young collectors got stamps was through “assorted” or “selection” packs, typically of 25 or 50 or more mixed stamps. These were in envelopes with transparent film so that you could see the top layer of stamps but not most of the rest, so you never quite knew what would be inside, and might reasonably hope to get at least one new country. Sometimes, when a non-Latin alphabet or mysterious language was used on a stamp, there would be excited research to discover where it was from, with the help of a Stamp Identifier pamphlet guide.

One day a friend showed me a stamp that was new to us and had the simple legend, as we thought, ‘Topay’ and a value in pence. But there was nothing else. Where was Topay? It sounded fairly exotic and yet used British currency, so it must presumably be a dependency, a former colony. Or could it be one of those Scottish islands that had started issuing many colourful stamps and were rather disliked by serious collectors? Or somewhere like Lundy, off the North Devon coast, who stamps were at least quite old in origin, going back to the 1920s and in theory fulfilled a genuine postal requirement, as the Royal Mail did not serve the island?

We looked at maps of the British Isles and in world atlases, and of course consulted our Stamp Identifier, but all in vain. Could it be one of those former colonies that had changed its name on independence, as had happened with quite a few in the South Pacific? But there had been no mention of this in the stamp magazines we bought each month. Still, the island domain of Topay caught our imagination and we began to speculate not only on where it was but what was its capital city, climate, population and people?

It was a few days before we chanced upon the answer. On 3 November, 1971, the Post Office had issued new decimal stamps in ten values, from halfpence to £1, and in shades from light green to mauve. They were designed by noted stamp artist Jeffery Matthews, who had clearly been given a brief to go for a contemporary look. The numbers were in a trendy Seventies fat font with a back-shadow, and the lettering had a flourish to the strokes, with a hint of the Victorian bazaar to them, or even the fairground carousel. Just such typography could be seen on progressive-rock and folk-rock albums, accompanied by pictures of men and women with long hair, loon pants, Afghan coats, cheesecloth shirts and rainbow scarves. But these were not standard issue stamps.

The stamps actually read ‘To Pay’ and were affixed by the Post Office to letters and parcels where not enough postage had been put on: these labels showed how much was still ‘To Pay’. They are otherwise known as ‘Postage Due’ and earlier labels used that term. But the slightly funky forward-sloping new design of the first Decimal Currency ‘To Pay’ stamps, all in capitals, had the effect of eliding the gap between ‘To’ and ‘Pay’, particularly in the values, like the one we had, where the lettering was positioned vertically on the left. Those had hardly any gap at all, and hence was born the legend of the lonely realm of Topay. I like to think it is still out there, somewhere.

(Mark Valentine)