Royal Mail is celebrating some of the world’s most beautiful artefacts in a spectacular collection of eight stamps featuring the Crown Jewels, the regalia of the British monarchy.
Issued on August 23, the stamps feature some of the most important and iconic pieces from the priceless collection.
This year marks the 350th anniversary of the making of many of the items shown, for the coronation of King Charles II in 1661 shortly after the Restoration of the monarchy.
Royal Mail’s largest stamp commission since the Millennium series will be completed on July 27 with the issue of the third and final set of Olympic & Paralympic Games stamps illustrating the whole gamut of Olympic sports.
The release of the 10-stamp set has been timed to take place exactly one year before the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Games.
Studio David Hillman was commissioned to direct the whole 30-stamp series, each of which has been designed by a different artist.
Arthur Bartlett from New Brunswick was a trader in dry goods and drapery.
But in his spare time he was a philatelist, no doubt itching to become a stamp dealer.
Fortunately, one of his friends was none other than Donald King, the Postmaster of Halifax, Nova Scotia, and this acquaintance was to provide him with a unique opportunity.
It was under Egyptian rule that Sudan’s first post offices opened in 1867, using a combination of Egyptian stamps and local cancellations.
In this vast territory of nearly a million square miles and arduous desert terrain, the camel was the means by which the mail was delivered over long distances.
There was British involvement in the Sudan in the 1870s, as Colonel Charles Gordon was appointed Governor of the country by the Khedive of Egypt, but direct responsibility came only after British forces occupied Egypt in 1882.
The portrait of Queen Victoria which had been used for Queensland’s first stamps in 1860 was based on Alfred Chalon’s fine watercolour of 1837, depicting her as an elegant 18-year-old Princess during her first royal engagement, the State Opening of Parliament.
The recess-printed issue was a fine opener for the colony, and showing the Queen looking so youthful, even though she was by now in her 40s, was understandable flattery.
Few, however, could have anticipated that stamps bearing this portrait would still have postal validity after she had died of old age!
The ‘Small Chalons’ of 1860 ruled the roost for 19 years and became a symbol of Queensland.
Monaco’s Prince Rainier III is best remembered around the world as the monarch who married the beautiful film star Grace Kelly.
But
A keen collector himself, Rainier once called stamps ‘the best ambassador of a country’, and as soon he became the Sovereign Prince of Monaco he began promoting its philately.
In the year of his accession, 1950, he founded the Monaco Postal Museum and filled it with the collections of his predecessors, Prince Albert I and Prince Louis II.
There aren’t too many countries that can boast definitive sets that have run for over a century, but Denmark can.
Its ‘Wavy Lines’ series was first issued in 1905, and is still going strong today!
The design, by Julius Terchilsen, includes symbols from the Danish Coat of Arms, along with three waves intended to represent the three straits that connect the North Sea and the Baltic Sea: the Storebælt (Great Belt), Lillebælt (Little Belt) and Øresund.
There are three essential groups of these iconic stamps to collect.
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