Cooking at the fire — 6 + 4 c

The Philippines hosted the X World Scout Jamboree at Makiling National Park, Los Baños, Laguna, from 17 to 26 July 1959 — the first world jamboree held in Asia. The stamps came out in three instalments across those ten days: the three airmail values on 17 July, the two postage values on 22 July, and the souvenir sheet on the closing day, 26 July. Domfil catalogues the stamps as 959.12/16 and the sheet as 959.17.

Five designs run through the issue: Scouts cooking at a fire, archery at the butts, a Scout cycling, a Scout with a model aeroplane, and President Carlos P. Garcia shaking hands with a Scout. SOSOW records that the designs were chosen from entries submitted by Philippine Boy Scouts themselves, which is unusual — most jamboree issues come from a state artist. The Japanese Government Printing Bureau engraved them, perforation 13, in panes of 50, and the surtax on every value went to financing the jamboree.

The two postage values were also printed in tête-bêche sheets of forty, in which alternate rows are inverted. That gives each of them two orientations, catalogued here as separate pieces, and the joined pair of 6 + 4 and 25 + 5 that Domfil prices as the capicúa. SOSOW puts the tête-bêche printing at 200,000 against 2,500,000 of the ordinary 6 c and 500,000 of the 25 c, and notes two paper varieties, white and yellow.

The souvenir sheet holds one of each of the five designs above the jamboree emblem, inscribed COMMEMORATING THE 10TH WORLD JAMBOREE with the park, the dates and the face value of four pesos. A hundred thousand were printed. The nine pieces are catalogued here in rising face-value order, with the sheet last.