9th January 2012

The 2012 Diamond Jubilee Starts Here

Michael Sefi, Keeper of the Royal Philatelic Collection, came clean in last week's fascinating two-part TV documentary on King George V and Queen Mary that there is ‘something of the pedant’ in the stamp collector and it would be difficult to deny this view.

This tendency toward pedantry has to be acknowledged as something of a defining trait and television production companies, for example, fail to understand the outrage that they create when they get important philatelic details completely wrong. I am still upset about the 1951 2s.6d. stamp that wildly overfranked a postcard sent by the young Eric Morecambe to his parents in the recent fictionalised documentary Eric and Ernie - and do not get me started on the 1930s photogravure stamp erroneously stuck on an envelope supposedly sent home from the First World War trenches, as seen in newspaper advertising for the recent series of Downton Abbey.

Of course, one person’s ‘pedantry’ is another person’s ‘attention to detail’ and it was hinted in the programme that the very course of history was altered by the King’s personal qualities, the wise judgement he showed, based on a calm consideration of all aspects of any situation, that his stamp collecting would have encouraged. By instinct he was a bad tempered bully, but this was hidden away and the British people continued to love him.

From last week’s documentary we can now see that without the life lessons that George gained through the patient pursuit of his hobby, without careful handling of the public’s view of the importance of the Royal Family in the nation’s affairs, Britain might well have fallen to a Bolshevik Revolution after the First World War.

This would have been a very bad thing indeed. Communist stamp issues were usually terribly dull.

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Due to a late start George V made it only to his Silver Jubilee in 1935 whereas his grandmother, Queen Victoria, marched through sixty years of rule to her Diamond Jubilee, a feat shortly to be emulated by our present Queen, 115 years later.

By happy coincidence the Grosvenor March auction includes an exceptional collection of Leeward Islands that includes rare items from their 1897 Diamond Jubilee issue. The collection was formed by Tony Farmer, well known as the author of The 1897 Sexagenary Overprint, that essential guide to the many forgeries and itself the impressive product of many patient years of careful, detailed analysis.

We have mentioned before the economic considerations that encouraged smaller colonies to embrace the Key Plate design and a lack of resources also informed the decision by the local government to commemorate the Jubilee by overprinting some of their existing stamp stock with a decorative handstamp inscribed “SEXAGENARY 1897”, “VRI” (Victoria Regina Imperatrix) being entwined in the centre.

The overprints were individually applied, yet the young clerk responsible, the younger brother of the Antigua Postmaster, was of diligent character and true errors are rare. The double overprint on the 5s. is extremely scarce and just one example of a triple overprint, found on a plate number pair of the 1d., has been discovered. These, and other rarities, will be looking for kind new homes in March.

With much other fine and special material due to come to the market in the next months, Jubilee Year 2012 promises to be memorable indeed.