Royal Mail Marks Queen’s 60th anniversary of accession to the throne…

 

 

ROYAL MAIL MARKS DIAMOND JUBILEE WITH EIGHT INDIVIDUAL NEW PORTRAIT STAMPS

· The set of eight individual royal portraits of Her Majesty The Queen marks the 60^th anniversary of her accession to the throne in 1952

· The Diamond Jubilee Special Stamps were launched on 31 May 2012 and will be available in all Post Office Branches. The stamps can also be bought at www.royalmail.com for one year

· The new stamps chart six decades of British history using archived photography of significant Royal moments, including The Queen’s first Christmas broadcast in 1957, Trooping the Colour in 1967 and celebrations of her Golden Jubilee  in 2002

· This is the third and final stamp issue in 2012 to mark The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. The first was The House of Windsor and Saxe-Coburg-Gotha issue issued on 2 February. The second was the Diamond Jubilee Definitive Sheet, issued on 6 February; the same day The Queen ascended the throne in 1952

· The Queen’s 25^th, 40^th and 50^th Jubilees were also marked with special stamp issues – an illustration of The Queen and the Royal Cypher ER in 1977,  a combination of public and private portraits in 1992, and black and white portrait images for the Golden Jubilee in 2002

Royal Mail is celebrating the culmination of Her Majesty The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee festivities with eight new stamps featuring a selection of some of the most memorable events of her historic 60 year reign.

The eight stamps give a fascinating insight into the hugely diverse duties The Queen has performed; from delivering the first televised Christmas broadcast in 1957, to inspecting the 2nd Battalion Royal Welsh, as Commander-in-Chief of the UK’s Armed Forces, half a century later in 2007. The Queen’s 60 year reign is already the second longest for a British monarch. Queen Victoria ruled for 63 years and 7 months.

Club News

Secret little post office gets Diamond Jubilee honour

As part of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations Bletchley Park’s wartime Post Office was opened by Michael Sefi, Keeper of the Royal Philatelic Collection on Friday 25^th May.  The Enigma code breakers undercover mailroom was revealed to an audience of invited guest and media ahead of Bletchley Park’s “Forties” weekend.

Matthew Hill - Editor of Stamp and Coin Mart, Terry Mitchell - Bletchley Park Post Office and Michael Sefi being filmed by BBC News at the opening of the re-furbished post office.

Keeping with the 1940’s theme Bletchley Park Post Office unveiled a first day cover for Royal Mail’s Great British Fashion stamp issue. The patriotic design took inspiration from iconic fashion illustrator, René Gruau. A familiar figure to the designers featured on the stamps as well as the fashionable wartime code breakers of Bletchley Park during World War 2.

The double sided cover has the set of ten stamps set over the Union Flag with an elegant lady code breaker as the first day of issue postmark. The full figure on the rear reflects the combination of glamour and sensuality with humour that was such a feature of Gruau’s work.

Only 500 have been released as a numbered limited edition. Issue price is £15 plus post & packing. They can be viewed and ordered from the web site at  www.bletchleycovers.com

Further information is available from BPPO, The Mansion, Bletchley Park, Milton Keynes MK3 6EB, Tel: +44(0)1908 363489

- Terry Mitchell. 01908 781440/07850 068674. Email: terry@ltmp.co.uk