all mailable matter, and to forward it as directed, the destination being to [some] regular post office of either country, charging thereupon the regular postal rate as established by law in the territories of either party receiving said mailable matter, in addition to the original postage of the office whence the mail [was] sent. On September 9, 1850, Hawaii's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Robert Crichton Wyllie, asked San Francisco's postmaster J. B. Moore to implement the treaty's mail exchange provision quickly, to support Hawaii's sovereignty against any potential French ambitions in the Hawaiian Islands. Moore agreed by early December, and the Honolulu Post Office opened on December 21, 1850. The Grinnell Missionaries In 1920, 43 additional Missionaries appeared on the philatelic market. They came from a Charles Shattuck, whose mother had apparently corresponded with her childhood friend Ursula Newell Emerson, matriarch of a missionary family in Hawaii, were acquired by George H. Grinnell and then sold to dealer John Klemann for $65,000. But in 1922, the stamps' authenticity became the subject of a court case, and they were adjudged forgeries. They have been studied on a number of occasions since then, but opinion remains divided. In 1922, experts testified that the Grinnells had been produced by photogravure and not by handset moveable type, but in the 1980s Keith Cordrey contended that they were probably typeset, and the Royal Philatelic Society London agreed. Further analysis showed that the ink and paper were consistent with 1850s types. Even so, the Royal Philatelic Society declared the stamps to be counterfeit. A book detailing their findings was published in 2006 titled The Investigation of the Grinnell Hawaiian Missionaries by the Expert Committee of the Royal Philatelic Society London by Patrick Pearson. In May 2006, Mystic Stamp Company announced that they had acquired 36 of the Grinnells from the descendants of George Grinnell, and were selling the group "as is" for US$1.5 million. Many of the surviving Missionaries are repaired, and David Beech has commented that they probably would not have survived had they not been. See also Hawaiian Philatelic Society List of notable postage stamps Postage stamps and postal history of Hawaii References and sources References Sources Donna O'Keefe, Linn's Philatelic Gems 1 (Amos Press, 1989) Siegel auction catalog for the Honolulu Advertiser collection, November 1995 Henry A. Meyer. Hawaii, its stamp and postal history. New York: Philatelic Foundation, 1948 External links Missionary stamps