Fun Facts About Bahamian Stamps and Mail Service

Stamps honored important people, pirates and flora and fauna. See more about the people depicted on Bahamian stamps over the years
The Bahamas had the world's only undersea post office that handled mail from 16 August 1939 to 25 June 1942. Read more: Post Office on Bahamas Ocean Floor - Nassau Tribune
4d 1938, Sea Garden, Nassau

A Postcard Sent from the Undersea Post Office
"No British colony of comparable size includes a larger number of Post Offices within its borders..." according to Gisburn, Harold G.D. "The Postage Stamps and Postal History of the Bahamas London," Stanley Gibbons Ltd., 1950. p. 129.

12c 1968, Scott 285

The Bahamas was the world's first country to issue stamps with curving perforations (to form kidney-shaped stamps), according to the "Guinness Book of Stamps Facts and Feats."
Special delivery stamps of 1916 to 1918 are the only such stamps to be issued by a commonwealth country other than Canada, New Zealand, and Mauritius.
The Bahamas issued its first stamp in 1859 (before Greece 1861, Italy 1862, Turkey 1863, Egypt 1866, Japan 1871, Hungary 1871, and China 1878, according to the "Guinness Book of Stamps Facts and Feats."
One of the oldest post office buildings in the western hemisphere is located in Pitts Town, Crooked Island. This building served as the Packet Station and General Post Office of the Bahamas from October 1787 to about February of 1793. It reopened about June of 1802 and finally closed in 1843. It is now a restaurant.
Of the twelve participating administrations which took part in the Crown Agents Stamp Bureau's philatelic farewell to Hong Kong, the Bahamas was the only one which produced an official first-day cover. Souvenir sheet image Philatelic Exporter, Editor's Comment, Philatelic Farewell to Hong Kong.

More Information about Mailboats and Stamps

Watch the Lady Rosalind II Mailboat that provides passenger service, imports all goods to the islands, and transports live animals from conch to goats and agricultural products to market in Nassau. Mailboats provide a critical lifeline to many islands of the Bahamas.

Mailboats and their transit between islands even appears in the music of the Bahamas – Watch and listen to “Stop That Mailboat” performed by the Brilanders to a Calypso beat.

In the Seattle Times: “Island-hopping the Bahamas by Mailboat”.

See Historian Eric Wiberg's Database of Bahamas Mailboats

See the Stamp Collection

Stamps particular to Grand Bahama: