OUR OLD STAMPS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 48, Issue 83, 18 January 1928, Page 7

OUR OLD STAMPS.

FORTUNES IN LABELS. A UNIVERSAL HOBBY. The paragraph published a few days ago that, to the effect that for a mere song two of New Zealand's earliest postage stamps had been acquired by a lucky collector, brings to the fore again a hobby that kings and schoolboys alike indulge in. To the superior person a postage-stamp may 'be only a dirty bit of coloured paper, but to the enlightened collector a stamp album is something more than a glorified form of scrap book. It is to him a compendium of fascinating knowledge and a mine of information. Its variegated contents bring vividly before him the history, geography, politics, peoples, and customs of the lands from which they emanate, together with a thou-sand-and-one curious, and sometimes romantic, incidents. These tiny bits of gummed paper are silent recorders of the progress of nations. The modest postage-label had its origin less than 100 years ago, Britain's first stamp being used in 1840. The postage-stamp is 'now something more than a mere form of official receipt for money paid: it is a symbol of deep significance for those to whom its mysteries are revealed. It has become one of the most powerful aids' to communication that the genius of man has produced, commanding the services of the fastest trains and steamers and, in the days of progress, of aeroplanes too.

in the early days of postage-stamps comparatively few were printed and used, and no one anticipated that some day there would be collectors of post-age-stamps all the world over. Had this been foreseen, the foundation' of many a fortune could have been laid, for many an early stamp now costs a hundred pounds or more to buy, some even thousands. The first of New Zealand's stamps are not amongst the world's rarities, but none the less they are very hard to acquire in good condition, arid they are consequently valuable.

; At the beginning of 1851 a "Gazette" proclamation foreshadowed the introduction in New Zealand of "a system iof prepayment of letters' by stamps." Four and a-half years elapsed, however, before the first New Zealand postage-stamps were issued (July, 1855). They were engraved by that splendid craftsman, William Humphries, and bore the head of Queen Victoria' in robes of State, and were printed in London. The steel plates ior producing stamps of the values of Id, 2d, and one shilling were sent out to the Colony, and in the same year local printings were made by Mr J. Richardson, in Auckland. A few years later a six-penny stamp was added for 1 postage tc England, for mails going to Southampton. Then a 3d stamp was added as a supplementary fee for letters dispatched by the quickest route via Marseilles. In 1862 the printing of New Zealand's postage-stamps was undertaken by the Government instead of being left to private firms. This! was done in Auckland first, and finally in Wellington after the seat of Government was transferred in 1865. Since that date the Government Printing Office has produced all the colonially-printed issues of postage stamps. The first stamp designed, engraved, and printed entirely in New Zealand was the old halfpenny newspaper stamp, first issued nearly 60 years ago.