Who was Delia Rue ?

Every so often I am asked my opinion of 'Stanley Gibson' and I have to tell the questioner what I think about stamp investment.

Of course the questioner is referring to 'Stanley Gibbons' and I do have an opinion on buying for investment. We all do. The difficult part of being asked this question is to try not to laugh at the malapropism. Fortunately it is a fairly common one and I am ready for it.

I was less prepared this week when asked about 'Delia Rue" and I am now stuck with the image in my head of a comfortable looking middle-aged woman cooking up stamps in a giant kitchen. Perhaps with a drink or two inside her. To make things worse I laughed out loud and confused the client utterly.

To cover my rudeness I found myself giving a long, involved explanation as to why we have many reasons to be grateful to Thomas De La Rue and his successors, for both the high quality of their work and the attractiveness of their designs.

Some are in front of me now as I survey one of Mike Rego's fine collections, including two rather lovely but unadopted essays for a Saint Lucia issue proposed in around 1910. One in particular is most imposing and, if chosen, might have attracted more collectors to this rather neglected country. Granted the vignette is a little dull but this could easily have been replaced by perhaps the view of the 'Pitons' that had worked so well on the 1902 stamp issued to commemorate the 400th Anniversary of the 'Discovery' of the island (of course the local Indians were rather under the impression that they had already discovered it).

Thomas, the founder of the company, was born in Guernsey in 1793 of very humble origins and with little formal education. Before stamps came along he had already (among other accomplishments) successfully produced newspapers, straw hats and playing cards.  The company that he started is today the world's largest commercial security printer and considered a role model for similarly sized businesses.

So thank you, Thomas, particularly for the development of surface printing, your British fiscal stamps of 1853 having been the first stamps printed by this method as well as being the first perforated stamps to be issued. Thank you also to your sons and their craftsmen who continued the company's progress after your retirement in 1858.

JG