Philathelic phantacy production or patriotic emergency issue?
Interestingly, it seems that the known 2c copies have inverted
overprints. I speculate
that a maximum of one sheet, probably less, was overprinted and that
the overprint was made inverted on purpose, so that the portrait of
the ousted president Salomon could be placed up-side-down on covers
to signal disgrace, while the overprint giving the initials of the
revolutionary government, 'République Septentrionale', could be read
in the right orientation.
When the first stamps surfaced in 1890(!), there was speculation that
the overprint was a fantasy production produced for stamp collectors
(Kohl's Handbuch). Doings for which Haiti is notorious. However,
several facts about the stamps strongly speak against the stamps being
philatelic.
First of all, no unused copies are known. Characteristic for all
philatelic speculation in Haiti in the early days is that unused
copies are way more common than used and that used copies are
usually cancelled with easily recognisable CTO-cancels. The stamp
exhibited above show parts of two cancels, which does not look like
CTO-cancels. Second, the first stamps surfaced in 1890 right after
the revolution ended in October 1889. Third and very striking, the
year slug reads '89' in broad numbers, which are characteristic of
the 89 year slug arriving from France to Cap Haitien on 16 July 1889,
and which were used on the contemporary Cap Haitien Black Seal covers,
see next page. Fourth, all the known copies are cancelled within the
right time-period in two major towns that were part of the
revolutionary republic, whereas any 'normal' stamps cancelled in
these towns during the revolution are unknown! Thus, everything
point towards the stamps being a true patriotic emergency production
in a time of extreme stamp shortage.