MISTAKES ON MAPS

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32524, 6 February 1971, Page 12

MISTAKES ON MAPS

(By

Kenneth Anthony)

staJJ’ STORY

Perhaps it is hardly surprising that William the Conqueror, depicted on the left-hand side of this Guernsey stamp, should appear to wear a puzzled expression. ■For, if you look closely at the degree of latitude on the map, it would seem that this part of William’s dukedom of Normandy has suddenly been removed from the English Channel to the middle of Spain. What in fact has happened is that the map wrongly

shows 40 degrees 30 minutes, whereas Guernsey’s correct latitude is 49 degrees 30 minutes north.

This stamp comes from Guernsey’s first regular issue, introduced in October, 1969 after the separation of the island post office from the British postal system. The same curious error appears on the Is 6d value as well as the Id stamp of the set. Despite all the care and skill that goes into modem stamp design, it is remarkable how many errors slip through, unnoticed by the authorities until some

sharp-eyed collector takes a certain malicious pleasure in pointing them out! This is not by any means the first time that maps have proved a snare for designers. Another mistake in latitude cropped up on a 12c stamp issued by Mauritius in 1950—this showed the long-extinct dodo bird super imposed on a map of the island—and in the same year North Borneo even managed to spell the name of its capital wrongly! A map of the territory chosen as the subject of a 50c stamp gave the spelling as Jessleton. Nearly two years later the mistake was corrected to Jesselton when the stamp was reprinted. Back in 1928 Newfoundland issued a 1c stamp with a map design which included a most surprising error the names of Cape Bauld and Cape Norman, on the Newfoundland coast, were reversed. This was put right when the design was redrawn in the following year.