But it was worth it because it’s the first day cover of all first day covers.”īut although every schoolboy knows of the Penny Black, and millions of the stamps were printed, it had a fairly short existence. We did this and bought the cover for £250,000 in 2001. She agreed on the condition that we disposed of duplicate material to help defray the cost. “In 2000 Stanley Gibbons, the stamp dealer, decided to sell it and we advised the Queen that it would be a very worthwhile addition to the collection. The Kirkcudbright cover: ten Penny Blacks on their first day of use
As Michael Sefi explains though, this is a more recent addition to the collection. Ten of the stamps were used to cover postage and it is the largest multiple first-day use of the stamp in existence. For example, the Kirkcudbright cover, actually a wrapper containing legal documents and posted to that Scottish town on the first day of the Penny Black. Normally, researchers would have to make an appointment to see stamps from the Collection at St James’s Palace, but this show gives the public the chance to see some of the rarest and most valuable stamps in the world. “His uncle, Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, Edward VII’s younger brother, first collected stamps in the 19 th century and he subsequently interested his nephew in the hobby and advised him on his own collection.” But as the Collection’s Keeper, Michael Sefi reveals, he was not the first royal with an interest in philately. The Guildhall Gallery exhibition includes some of the stamps from the Royal Philatelic Collection which George himself would have bought.
At the time of his death in 1936, he had amassed 328 albums containing almost a quarter of a million stamps of the British Empire, the greatest collection of its kind. It was almost as if the King was destined to be a stamp collector and he took a lifelong interest in the subject. There is a pleasing symmetry to the date – – of George becoming king as it was 70 years to the day in 1840 that the Penny Black, the world’s first stamp, came into use.
British postal strike airmail 5 pounds to usa archive#
The exhibition at the City of London's Guildhall Gallery (c) The British Postal Museum & Archive
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