EIIR - The Art of Stamps: Beauty and Design in the Early Elizabethan Era

When Elizabeth ascended the throne in 1952 following the death of her father King George VI, Britain faced the future with a fragile optimism. It was a time when even the smallest things — the postage stamps that bore her image — reflected a quiet confidence and beauty that spoke of a nation still sure of its place in the world

The Second World War had left Britain a broken and deeply indebted country. She may have won the war but the peace was not going to be easy. Despite this, there was a great spirit of optimism as the Queen ascended to the throne.

Before the long decline began, there was a period between the early 1950s to the mid 1960s, where despite the obstacles, Britain remained a major manufacturing country and was indeed innovative in science and engineering. One only has to consider how Britain led the world in the aircraft and nuclear power industries to realise that we were still a considerable force, albeit greatly diminished, in Europe.

But it is the iconography of this period that remains most striking - captured best in the postage stamps of early Elizabethan Britain.

Britain is the only country not to have the country name on their postage stamps but instead relies on the reigning sovereign’s portrait to identify their origin. And so it was that the first definitive stamps of the new queen were issued in 1952 featuring the three quarter head portrait shot by artist Dorothy Wilding.

Wilding photographed the Queen in 59 different dresses by Norman Hartnell and these images were reproduced and sent to every embassy around the world. And it is the head shot complete with the George IV Diamond Diadem that went on to define the stamps of the first ten years of her reign.

The image shows the Queen looking to the left but never quite at the viewer. On the definitive stamps her portrait is centred on the stamps but on the larger commemorative stamps her portrait is always on the right but again facing to the left.

These early stamps had a confidence and a dignity which was to be lost from 1966 onwards when the head is reduced to a side silhouette and the tiara is removed. This change, whilst not totally unattractive, was perhaps fitting for the changing times but somehow seems to have diminished the power and dignity of the sovereign.

As well as the stamps, the monarch’s cypher is carried on all Royal Mail post boxes and vehicles. Whilst old post boxes are not replaced when a monarch dies, new ones naturally bear the cypher of the reigning monarch. Thus, over the course of sixty years on the throne, no end of post boxes bear the EIIR cypher and will continue to do so for many years to come. (Sadly, due to the rise of the internet and the decline in letter writing, we are unlikely to see many - if indeed any - bearing the cypher of the current King.)

I have a large collection of British stamps dating back to Queen Victoria. Sadly, such is life that it is now rather neglected. Yet on occasions, revisiting these artistic gems becomes a renewed pleasure.

Back in the 1960’s the repository of all philatelic knowledge was Stanley Gibbons whose offices and shop were, and still are, on the Strand in London. They publish directories of all the world’s stamps and their potential values. As a young collector, the search was for the imperfect stamp, not the perfect ones.

Due to large production runs, most stamps have relatively poor values. It was during the early years of Queen Elizabeth that commemorative stamp sets became popular with collectors and the Royal Mail would issue as many as 8 or 9 such sets each year as well as the definitive stamps that simply bear the monarch’s portrait. One therefore eagerly tried to find stamps with imperfections as identified in the Stanley Gibbons catalogues. It could be a pearl missing from the Queen’s necklace or a printing error to her hair or any other such minor discrepancy that could send the price soaring. I never did find anything amongst my collection to raise the price and in equal measure my excitement, but that was part of the fun of collecting. There was always a chance.

With the change in the portrait to the silhouette in the 1960’s the opportunities to discover errors diminished.

To my eyes there is a distinct Englishness about them which seemed to diminish by the mid 1960s. By then the designs seemed less distinct than these earlier examples although many are still very pleasing examples of the miniature art.

Many people, perhaps most, fail to notice these gems of miniature art. The decline in physical mail in the internet age has dulled our appreciation to this form of communication. It is further diminished by envelopes that are licence paid and do not need physical stamps. Yet despite the decline in the mail, postage stamps are still produced by all the countries of the world. I doubt they will ever disappear completely and for this we should all be grateful.

Each stamp, however small, carries the trace of a human hand, an eye for balance and grace. To pause and admire it is to affirm that beauty, however modest, still matters.