Stamp collecting

Wrong Statue of Liberty on stamp

16 April 2011


The Lady Liberty first class postage stamp that left US postal bosses red-faced

The US Post Office has made a huge mistake on a stamp honouring an icon of America, the Statue of Liberty.

A first-class mail stamp featuring the Miss Liberty is based on a photograph of a replica of the statue at a Las Vegas casino.

Postal Service spokesman Roy Betts said three billion stamps have been printed, and they will not be pulled from the market. The 44-cent forever stamp has been on sale in coils since December and is to be released in booklet form.

The actual Statue of Liberty has appeared on more than 20 stamps previously, Mr Betts said.

In the Post Office's news release in December announcing the stamp, the service said the Statue of Liberty was shown in a close-up photograph of her head and crown.

The mistake was first reported by Linn's Stamp News. Linn's, a weekly magazine for stamp collectors, noted that the stamp shows a rectangular patch on the crown of the statue. Such a patch does not appear on the statue in New York Harbour that has welcomed millions of immigrants to their new home.

In addition, the magazine said, the eyes, eyelids and eyebrows on the replica appear more sharply defined than on the original statue, and the hair is different.

AOL

Stamp collecting thread from the old ATU site:

LINK EXPIRED

Deep mourning is de rigeur for philatelists everywhere:



Wiki:

The Penny Black was the world's first adhesive postage stamp used in a public postal system. It was issued by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland on 1 May 1840, for official use from 6 May of that year.

All London post offices received official issues of the new stamps but other offices throughout the United Kingdom did not, continuing to accept postage payments in cash only for a period. Post offices such as those in Bath, began offering the stamp unofficially after 2 May.

UK Royal Mail Beatles postage stamps.

Ralph Steadman's design for a UK Royal Mail postage stamp depicting a bewigged Edmond Halley as the head of his famous comet.

Ironic that as British scientists are chewing their nails to the quick awaiting funding cut announcements, that the Royal Mail should today launch a brand new set of special stamps, celebrating British medical breakthroughs through the years.



The launch marks some of the most important medical discoveries that have taken place in the UK since the late 19th Century and include the pioneering work of Sir Ronald Ross in 1897 which was pivotal in the development of today’s anti-malarial drugs. Other stamps recognise heart-regulating beta-blockers, the antibiotic properties of penicillin and the computed tomography (CT) scanner.

Ironic too that the Royal Mail itself is also facing cuts and slashes of its own in coming months.

Alexander Graham Bell commemorative issue, 1947.

Abraham Lincoln commemorative issue, 1866.

The first US commemorative stamp, 1893.

The first UK commemorative stamps, 1924.

Republic of Ireland commemorative stamp, 2007.

UK Royal Mail "Comedians" issue with Tony Hancock franking stamp. Featuring Tommy Cooper, Eric Morcambe, Joyce Grenfel. Les Dawson, Peter Cook.

The Soviet Union's view of Winnie the Pooh and Piglet.

Elvis Presley Briefmarke Deutsche Bundespost 1988 postfrisch Schuschke.

Codebreaker Alan Turing gets stamp of approval

Gay mathematician convicted of gross indecency in 1952 among those to be celebrated in Royal Mail stamps in 2012

Caroline Davies

The Guardian, Monday 2 January 2012


In 2009, Gordon Brown issued an unequivocal apology to Alan Turing (above), saying the country owed him a huge debt.

The mathematician and second world war codebreaker Alan Turing is to be celebrated on a special stamp as an online petition calls for a posthumous pardon to quash his conviction for gross indecency.

The computer pioneer is one of 10 prominent people chosen for the Royal Mail's Britons of Distinction stamps, to be launched in February, which includes the allied war heroine Odette Hallowes of the Special Operations Executive, composer Frederick Delius and architect Sir Basil Spence, to mark the golden jubilee of Coventry Cathedral.

Turing worked as part of the team that cracked the Enigma code at Bletchley Park, and went on to help create the world's first modern computer. This year marks the centenary of his birth.

He was convicted of gross indecency in 1952, when homosexual acts were illegal in the UK, and sentenced to chemical castration. He killed himself two years later by taking cyanide. The e-petition says his treatment and death "remains a shame on the UK government and UK history".

In 2009, the then prime minister Gordon Brown issued an unequivocal apology on behalf of the government to Turing, describing his treatment as "horrifying" and "utterly unfair". Brown said the country owed him a huge debt.

Hallowes, who was born in Amiens, France, in April 1912 and married an Englishman in 1931, was awarded the George Cross (the only woman to receive the honour while alive) and the Légion d'honneur for her work in Nazi occupied France.

She was imprisoned, tortured and condemned to death in 1943 after being betrayed, but survived Ravensbrück concentration camp and the war. She died in 1995 in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey.

The Olympic Games and the Queen's diamond jubilee also feature in the 2012 special stamp programme.

House of Windsor stamps will feature the five monarchs from the start of the 20th century, with the Queen taking pride of place on the final stamp to mark the 60th year of her reign. A special miniature sheet issued on 6 February will bring together six portraits of her taken from stamps, coinage and banknotes.

Giant peaches and a famous chocolate factory will feature in a set of six stamps on 10 January to celebrate the work of Roald Dahl.

The first of several stamp issues to mark the London Games go on sale on 5 January. Other stamp subjects during the year include Charles Dickens, born 200 years ago this year, great British fashion, comics, dinosaurs, space science and classic locomotives of Scotland.

Kipper Williams on the recent massive hike in UK postal rates:

How stamp collecting came unstuck

The Royal Mail's desperation to sell stamps is killing off my cheap and therapeutic hobby

Hunter Davies

guardian.co.uk, Friday 13 April 2012 19.30 BST


'Thirty years ago there were around 20 different stamp shops centred on the Strand in London. Oh, it was rapture on a Saturday morning. Now, I can only think of two.' Photograph: Alamy

This will be a bumper year for commemorative stamps, with the Royal Mail shoving out loads of new issues for the Queen's jubilee, the Olympics, sheep, pigs, anything at all really. It has become the perfect definition of a licence to print money.

People in the philatelic world are up in arms about it, realising it is doing their hobby no good. There are just so many new issues each year that children and new collectors will be priced out of the market, should they try to keep up with the output. Though in its defence the Royal Mail said this week that it has deliberately reduced the number of new commemorative issues this year, as a response to complaints.

One of my rules for collecting is never collect stuff that was made for collecting. I predict that this time next year, if you visit the stamp stalls under the arches at Charing Cross station in central London any Saturday morning, you will see boxes of recent first-day covers – originally selling at around £5-£10 – lying in bargain boxes at £1 each.

I do break my own rule all the time. And I collect commemorative stamps – as long as they are very old. The first ones appeared in 1924 to celebrate the British Empire Exhibition. They were not produced cynically, as they are now, to make a quick and easy buck. There were only two values – the 1d and 1 1/2d – so there was not exactly overkill. Once it was all over, our stamps reverted to their normal size and design, as they had been since 1840 when it all began with the Penny Black. These are known in the trade as definitives: little stamps with the monarch's head on.

Now and again we were treated to the odd special stamp, usually for a royal or national occasion, such as George V's silver jubilee in 1935, or the Olympics in London in 1948. But the flood of commemorative stamps began in the 1960s when the Post Office got wise to the commercial possibilities. In recent years, we have had 14-15 new issues every year.

One of the reasons for their success was the rise of what are known as thematics. Thematic collectors only go for stamps showing birds, for example, or railways, or famous painting – or, in my case, football. It is fascinating to see all the special issues that have been produced around the world for a World Cup, many of them beautifully designed. My faves include the Italian set for the 1934 World Cup, and the GB set for 1966, when England won. So that makes them pretty special. But I draw the line at any football stamps after 1966, or any commemorative ones after the 60s. There are just so many, so gaudy, so nasty, so manipulative.

This, of course, is hard cheese for the philatelic trade. When I became a born-again stamp collector 30 years ago – a normal human process, whereby we regress to our childhood interests – there were around 20 different stamp shops centred on the Strand in London. Oh, it was rapture on a Saturday morning. Now, I can only think of two. Stamp collecting has taken a battering.

Which is a shame. Stamps are portable, easy to sort and arrange, and cheap to buy (in fact free, if you steam them off envelopes). They are terribly educational and informative – and also therapeutic. When I was in bed as a child, racked with asthma, I would turn over the pages of my stamp album – and in half an hour my wheezing would have stopped.

I bought albums, packets of stamps and tweezers for my own children, and now my grandchildren. And are they interested? Are they heckers. Not when they have smartphones and iPads and computers to play with. I do fear that the Royal Mail, with its greed, is likely to kill off a humble, harmless childhood hobby, once and for all.

Stamps of approval: British design classics

Take a look at the Royal Mail's new set of stamps featuring classics of British design - pieces as iconic as the Mini, Concorde and Routemaster buses and compare them to Jonathan Glancey's alternative selection

Jonathan Glancey

guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 13 January 2009 15.09 GMT

The first Mini rolled off production lines 50 years ago. Sir Alec Issigonis's revolutionary car became an icon of the 60s and remains one of the most striking and familiar pieces of British design. Photograph: Royal Mail/PA

Strictly speaking, Concorde is an Anglo-French design classic, having been jointly created by BAC and Aérospatiale. Rumours still abound that Russia's Tupolev Tu-144 (or Concordski) was developed from blueprints obtained through espionage. Photograph: Royal Mail/PA

Mary Quant developed the miniskirt for her Kings Road boutique Bazaar after a long period of experimenting with shorter skirts and dresses. Photograph: Royal Mail/PA

Increasingly rare in the 21st century, London Transport's Routemaster bus still symbolises London across the world. Photograph: Royal Mail/PA

Another design tied to the capital, Harry Beck's elegant solution to the problems posed by the complexity of the London Underground was inspired by circuit diagrams, and established design principles that remain relevant today. Photograph: Royal Mail/PA

RJ Mitchell died before his Supermarine Spitfire even went into production. The plane's elliptical wings gave it a higher speed than most of its contemporaries as well as an iconic silhouette. Photograph: Royal Mail/PA

One of the first products to exploit the potential of injection moulding, Robin Day's ingenious stacking chair is so ubiquitous that the refinement of its design is easy to miss. Photograph: Royal Mail/PA

Famous for Battersea Power Station and Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral, Giles Gilbert Scott followed architectural cues in his submission to the GPO's competition to design a telephone kiosk. The K2 was an instant design classic. Photograph: Royal Mail/PA