St. Helena 150th Stamp Anniversary British Library Philatelic Rarities to feature on St. Helena issue
150 years ago, on January 1st 1856, the remote island of St. Helena issued its first postage stamp. "The St. Helena Herald" announced the 6d. blue stamp, which was to pay the postage on letters to the United Kingdom. At that time mail was carried by Royal Mail Packet ships or other sailing ships that called at the island on an occasional basis. The stamps were printed in England by Messrs. Perkins, Bacon & Co., who at this time were leading stamp printers. To commemorate this anniversary a set of six stamps and a miniature sheet are to be issued on January 16th, 2006. The set was commissioned by the Crown Agents Stamp Bureau on behalf of the St. Helena Post Office, and show a selection of stamp treasures from the British Library Philatelic Collections.
The 30p stamp and the £2 miniature sheet show an example of the first St. Helena 1856 6d. blue. The border of the £2 miniature sheet shows items and scenes from the British Library including the Perkins Bacon printing press, a statue of Newton from the Piazza of the Library, and the St. Helena Post Office at Jamestown.
The other values in the set are:
10p - This shows three stamps that were issued in St. Helena in 1961 to aid the Tristan Relief Fund. The Fund had been established to help the people of Tristan da Cunha (an associated territory of St. Helena) following a volcanic eruption on that island.
The background illustrates a post card, bearing three of the four values in the set, sent by the Governor of St Helena to the "Secretary of State for the Colonies" informing him of the new stamps. Unfortunately only the Colonial Office in London could authorise new stamps, and it is this postcard which led to the speedy withdrawal of the stamps from issue.
20p - A Cape of Good Hope Cape Triangular is featured on this stamp, it is an example of the 1855-63 1/- green printed by Perkins, Bacon and Co.
25p - This shows the U.S.A. 1918 24 cents Inverted Jenny. This is the first official air mail stamp of U.S.A. which illustrates a Curtiss JN-4 Jenny aeroplane. In error one sheet of one hundred stamps had the centre printed upside down, resulting in this famous rarity.
80p - This stamp shows a Great Britain 1840 1d. black, the first postage stamp in the world.
£1.20 - This value shows one of the rarest stamps in the world, the Mauritius 1847 "Post Office" 2d. blue, the Blue Mauritius.
David Beech, Head of Philatelic Collections said "The £2 miniature sheet featuring the first Post Office building, images of the Library at St. Pancras, together with the Perkins, Bacon printing press that would have been used to print the stamps, is a most pleasing design. The Crown Agents Stamp Bureau are to be congratulated in producing an attractive set of stamps for this important anniversary."
For further information or images, contact Victoria Main at the British Library Press Office: +44 (0)20 7412 7112 or Victoria.Main@bl.uk.
Notes for Editors
The British Library is the national Library of the United Kingdom . It provides world class information services to the academic, business, research and scientific communities and offers unparalleled access to the world's largest and most comprehensive research collection. Further information is available on the Library's website at www.bl.uk.
The Philatelic Collections were established in 1891 with the bequest of the Tapling Collection and consist of over eight million items, include postage and revenue stamps, postal stationery, artwork, essays, proofs, covers and entries, 'cinderella' material, specimen issues, airmails, some postal history materials, official and private posts, etc, for almost all countries and periods. With such diverse range of material, the Philatelic Collections, together with philatelic books, photographs, general reference material, maps, newspapers and official publications elsewhere in the Library, make the British Library one of the world's prime philatelic research centres. The British Library, Philatelic Collections, 96, Euston Road, London, NW1 2DB, Telephone: 020 7412 7635. E-mail: philatelic@bl.uk.
Website: www.bl.uk/collections/philatelic
Philatelic Rarities website: www.collectbritain.co.uk/collections/philatelic/
The Crown Agents Stamp Bureau is division of Crown Agents. Crown Agents is an international development company delivering capacity-building and institutional development consultancy services in public sector transformation. We work with the public and private sectors in more than 100 countries, as well as for international development agencies and institutions. Crown Agents Stamp Bureau work for more than 50 countries in varying capacities in the production and sale of postage stamps and related philatelic material. Further information is available at http://www.casb.co.uk.