See the nearby 1961 1/6d Post Office Savings Bank issue as a typical example, showing the vast chunk the QE2 image took up on stamps of this era.  I scanned this stamp today, and looked at the few straggly flowers, and wondered to myself what on earth they had to with the POSB? 

The Postal Museum website gave me the answer - it is supposedly a “Thrift Plant”!!  I kid you not - I am not making this up.  A Committee of big shots worked tirelessly on this master brain storm design for months.  Talk about LAME.

And I was not the only person wondering what on earth this silly looking bunch of flowers thing was all about.  The same website tells us Her Majesty approved the designs after a trip to Italy, but noted: “The Queen was puzzled as to the significance of some of the designs, and the Postmaster General was asked if, in future, short explanations could accompany stamp designs.”

The Assistant Postmaster General at the Press Conference announcing this issue, and the next 2 issues (quite a flood back then!) was laughably reported in the press as stating as far as issues of future British commemorative stamps were concerned - “we are trying to be as adventuresome as possible”. 

Just take a look at the truly dreary CEPT Conference set of 3 issued the very next month, and the even worse and corny National Productivity Year trio issued the following month, the heavily used letter rate value is shown nearby, and you wonder if he was inwardly laughing, and just taking the pith!  Even the Queen looks glum.

Postmaster General Tony Benn was very radical in many ways, and had fought long and hard to give BACK his hereditary peerage title of 2nd Viscount Stansgate of Stansgate.  He was the first in Britain to do so, due to the ‘1963 Peerage Act’ being passed - and almost entirely due to his continued efforts to rid himself of his inherited title - being a radical Labour activist!

Though a fierce critic of the British class system, Benn came from a moneyed and privileged family himself.  Both of his grandfathers had been Members of Parliament and his father, William Wedgwood Benn (1877-1960), had been a Liberal, and then a Labour, MP who in 1942 entered the House Of Lords as 1st Viscount Stansgate.

Tony Benn commissioned essays of the 1965 Churchill and Battle of Britain stamps showing NO Queen’s Head, and tried hard to get them approved by the Palace.  A losing battle it seems very clear.  The 1/3d Churchill essay is shown nearby, with NO Queen and the never before seen words “Great Britain” - alongside the issued stamp, showing the then traditional Wilding design head.

The accepted Churchill design stamps were shown to, and approved by, Lady Churchill before they were submitted the Queen.  Lady Churchill much preferred the Oscar Nemon marble bust resident in Windsor Castle, but was advised this would not work well, if transferred to one dimension on a stamp. 

The Stamp Advisory Committee insisted on a vertical line on the final Churchill stamp design being added, so that it did not give the impression the Queen was hovering somewhere in space, peering over Sir Winston’s left shoulder.

Printers Harrison & Sons informed the PO that because that line was the natural colour of the paper, there would be a tendency for the color to spread over that line.  After much testing Harrisons felt 75% of the issued stamps would be imperfect.  I assume that a tiny colour misregistration would visually thin that vertical line readily?  In practice I am not sure whether that occurred much in the finished stamps.

The UK Postal Museum official website postalmuseum.org  also tells us that in early 1965, the British Postmaster General Benn expressed a sudden interest in the content, and the general instructions sent to stamp artists, to aid them with their designs, and the parameters and necessary content to be used in them, for future stamp designs.  

In early March Benn had been granted an audience with the Queen, at which time the subject of the ‘new stamp policy’ was discussed.  During this audience, the Queen agreed that ‘non-traditional’ designs could be submitted for future issues. This was confirmed by a letter from the Queen’s Private Secretary on 12 March 1965.

It would appear that, during this Royal audience, the question of the continued use of the Queen’s head on stamps had been the subject of some discussion with Benn.  Certainly, the letter from Buckingham Palace contained the suggestion that the Royal Cypher be used in place of the Queen’s head ‘on certain stamps’. 

However, the GPO representative informed the Stamp Advisory Committee that it was ‘very unlikely’ that any design without the Queen’s head would be chosen, despite what had been said about design freedom in the ‘Instructions to Artists’ - emanating direct from boss, Postmaster General Benn.  It is all rather like an out-take script from “Yes Minister”!

Postmaster General Benn pushed ahead with his “Off With Her Head” campaign according to Royal Mail:  “At an audience in November 1965 The Queen informed the Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, that she DID want her head to appear on all stamps, but would approve the use of a silhouette format.  Fearing a political row, Benn accepted the situation, and pressed ahead with the use of a cameo silhouette.” 

Benn’s first “cameo” was on the 1966 “Landscape” issue shown nearby, where Mary Gillick’s cameo head design was used. The Queen approved that design, and made no comment on it.  Tony Benn in VERY quick time greatly reduced the size of that HUGE cameo head, as we all know, so that by the 1967 Christmas issue it was very unobtrusive and in the corner of each new stamp - and stayed that way! 

About 35 years ago there were moves to update her likeness on the Machin stamps - after all it had then been used for about 25 years.  The Queen’s Private Secretary is quoted by Royal Mail as responding in part: "Her Majesty is very content with the Machin effigy on the stamps, and thinks that a work of real quality is required, if this is to be replaced.”

Needless to say after that - Britain is stuck with the same Machin bust design to this day, and the never aging Queen - who after 53 years has not changed one iota on definitive stamps, or added a single wrinkle line!   I feel sure no-one has ever dared to raise it with her again.  Her Majesty’s image has seen her age gracefully on UK coinage, but oddly not on the stamps - I am sure there is a reason - someone will know!

Many collectors and dealers despair that no nice “finds” are still to be made, as it is near certain all old circa 1900 albums around the globe have been checked/picked over already, by the many, many, generations of other collectors or dealers that have walked before them, and peered in and plundered the vintage stamp albums. 

Whilst that is largely true, it is still possible to find key face different pieces like 1913 £2 Kangaroos, or GB £5 Oranges, or USA $5 Columbians etc, and even they still do turn up from time to time in old collections, that have remained tightly held in families, and have never been near a stamp dealer or an auction etc. 

An elderly lady bought over a huge red SG “Ideal” album that had been in her family for over a century, and she was downsizing to a care unit, and did not want to take it with her, and none of the family were interested in stamps.  She did not trust Auctions, and simply wanted a fair cash price for it all, so it would find a new home. 

These books are generally sparsely filled, as they are so huge, and but not so with this one.  The first pages of all these books contains AUSTRALIA, as they are arranged alphabetically.  On that page she had among other nice pieces, a complete set 15, of the 1913 Kangaroo stamps, ranging from the ½d to £2.

The values to 5/- all had the glossy CTO cancels, themselves a scarce set, and as always, the 3 high values were handstamped “Specimen” with a rubber stamp pad.  All lightly hinged in there over 100 years back, and had never been seen by any dealer since.  They are shown nearby, and are worth $1000’s thus.

All with fresh full gum, and super light peelable Gibbons hinges, and a client in South Africa is the proud owner of them today.  The 1913 “Specimen” issue is not common at all, and indeed to this day, we do not know for certain what packaging the set or folder it was sold in, or consisted of, as none have survived - rather amazingly.

Another nice piece in the old book was the GB 1913 £1 Green “Seahorse” VFU nearby.  This is by far the scarcest face different GB stamp from the past century, and is missing from nearly EVERY GB collection globally.  It is cat way near treble used, the GB “Glamour” item, the £1 PUC, and almost double the £1 KEVII.  A rare stamp.  I get one every few years or so in stock.  So nice stamps still DO surface, after a century of being hidden.

The £1 Seahorse is THE most attractive GB stamp ever, in my view.  And luckily, this one was superbly centred, within wide margins as you can see - most are not.  Near all on the market have horrid, really heavy thick smeary rubber “Killer” cancels, and/or many missing perfs due to the thick fibrous paper.

In my view it is the most under-priced high value in the SG book.  Even decent fault free examples like this sell for exactly what a MUH 5/- Harbour Bridge does.  Any of 30 dealers in this country have those in stock right now - but likely none of them HERE have a £1 Seahorse, in any condition, at ANY price!  Anyway, this one sold very fast.

It will have been used on a parcel from the UK to Sydney, where the collection was formed.  Postal use of a £1 back in this era was most unusual.  Many all the UK high values “used” are from Telegrams or revenue use.  A very large % of the £1 Green KEVII have undated rubber GUERNSEY or JERSEY cancels from customs charges etc.

Near ALL the existing “used” QV £5 Oranges are from excise payments of Whisky etc - large numbers have Belfast, Glasgow and Edinburgh neat black steel cds from this use, often in multiples - even the ones with superb steel cds cancels.  Far more on that here from the world expert on these, Dr. John Horsey - tinyurl.com/QV5PD

The £5 Orange stamp illustrated nearby is a truly lovely looking example of a key stamp, I am sure you’ll agree.  Nicely centred, great colour and perfs, and attractive.  This 1882 GB £5 Orange stamp is cancelled with a neat "Registered - Threadneedle Street - London" oval cancel of "24 - JA - 83".

The stamp very attractive stamp has the usual large single lined Anchor watermarks on each side. SG 133. Cat £12,500 used.  Comes complete with a 1985 Royal Philatelic Society London (RPSL) clear photo Certificate of Genuineness saying - "SG 133 £5 Orange on blued paper, used, is genuine".

So a lovely looking stamp, cat £12,500 with a clear RPSL Certificate, should be worth near $A10,000 or so - correct?   Wrong - it is a FAKE!   A forger carefully picked/scratched off those "SPECIMEN" letters, and then added a dodgy cancel on top, making it worth $1000s more than a "Specimen".  The oblique photos above show it well if you look carefully.

Indeed the very REASON the Australian Post Office moved from the handstamped “SPECIMEN” overprint used on these 1913 stamps nearby, was their fear that crooks would buy the sets for £1, and get £3½ of usable postage if they removed the non-fast handstamp letters by simple bleaching, AND got a bunch of other FU stamps VFU to 5/- “free” as well.

Memos flew around the place, and the often very faintly applied 1913 rubber stamp ink handstamps were replaced on all issues for the next 50 years with sold black letter “SPECIMEN” wording, in a very bold CAPS font, and was machine metal type applied, using jet black letterpress permanent printer ink.

The Australian Post Office for over 50 years created a wide range of different outer design and shaped packs to sell these packs to the public. The empty pack montage shown nearby I passed on to a client, and many are surprised at just how many variances came out over the decades.  And this is by no means all of them!

These stamps (and the many other KGV era stamps that were in the same pack) were sold for £1 a set at GPOs, with the stated intention of interesting youngsters in collecting Australian stamps. The composition of the stamps in each pack changed very often over the ensuing decades, as new stamps were issued.

Shown nearby is a full page ad for these in the April 1935 “Walkabout” magazine - a mass circulation publication to the public, and even then, few sets were sold, despite them having a CTO 1932 Sydney Harbour Bridge set 4, KGV Die 2, 4½ violet, Kingsford Smith overprinted “OS” trio, 5/- Roos OS, and the high value Roos overprinted “Specimen” etc. 

Australia sold these “Specimen” packs well into the 1970s at all Philatelic Bureaux - even then still at only $2 (=£1) a pack, and as always, the content was altered to include newer sets that had come on stream.  The 1966 era pack with all the 24 diff Decimal issues up to $4 Navigators are still seen pretty often, and will cost you not much more than $A100 or so.