happen that an order is not placed early enough or there is delay in
filling it and delivering the stamps. Owing to this, the values most in
use may be exhausted. Under such circumstances, it is customary to
provide a temporary supply by printing the needed value on some other
stamp, usually one of higher value. To use a lower value would tempt the
counterfeiting of the surcharge, for the profit to be made through the
increased value.

[Illustration: Stamp, "Mauritius", surcharged 4 cents]

[Illustration: Stamp, "Gibraltar", surcharged 5 centimos]

There are, however, a variety of other surcharges, a few of which may
interest you. The first two stamps indicate a change in the form of the
currency of the country, from pence to cents in Mauritius and from the
English half penny to its Spanish equivalent in Gibraltar. The
Seychelles stamp was prepared to meet a change in the rate for letters
to countries in the International Postal Union.

[Illustration: Stamp, "Seychelles", surcharged 8 cents]

[Illustration: Stamp, "St. Helena", surcharged 1 penny]

The first stamp made in St. Helena was a six pence. For a long time no
other value was engraved but the six pence stamps were printed in a
variety of colors and surcharged with the desired values. The Ceylon
stamp has been made available for revenue purposes, as well as postal.
The last stamp shown is from Shanghai. Its original value was 100 cash.
This was overprinted "20 cash" and the equivalent Chinese characters in
a double-lined frame, and again surcharged "100 cash."