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| Wilding
homage complete The two-sheet homage to the famous Wilding GB definitive designs will be completed on May 20, 2003 when this nine stamp sheet makes its debut just five-and-a-half months after the first sheet. Known as the Wilding Definitives Collection II the miniature sheet features the final nine Wildings definitives out of the 18 issued between 1952 and 1959 – they are the 1/-6d and 4d of November 2, 1953; the 3d, 6d and 7d originally launched on January 18, 1954; the 9d, 10d and 11d from February 8, 1954; and the 41/2d launched on February 9, 1959. The stamps are known as ‘Wildings’ because the image of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II featured on the stamps was originally a photograph by the society photographer Dorothy Wilding. A Royal Mail spokesman explained: ‘What we are doing is reproducing stamps that were universally appreciated’. Priced at £2.39 the sheet will be accompanied by a presentation pack that includes a potted history of the development of the Wildings series, as well as mini-biographies of the four designers involved – Michael C. Farrar Bell, George T. Knipe, Mary Adshead, and Edmund Dulac. The original values have been re-rendered in similar modern values by Mike Prately – the 4d is now 4p; the 3d is 8p; the 41/2d is 10p; the 6d is 19p; the 7d is 20p; the 9d is 27p; the 10d is 41p; the 11d is now 42p; and the 1/-6d is now a 68p value. Because of their updated values the stamps are valid for modern postage although British postal workers will have to be briefed to ensure that there is no repeat of the situation with the first Wilding sheet from December 2002 which saw letters bearing modern Wildings not being delivered as they had ’insufficient postage’ because some postal workers thought they were the older stamps. The sheet will utilise the ‘50’ watermarked paper which first appeared on the Golden Jubilee set of five Queen Elizabeth II stamps early last year. |
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