Concorde issue was delayed

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32661, 17 July 1971, Page 12

Concorde issue was delayed

(By KENNETH ANTHONY)

Now that both prototypes of the revolutionary Concorde airliner have successfully broken the sound barrier, it is interesting to recall the curious story of the only British stamps to be printed more than a year before they were issued. When the British Post Office decided to mark Concorde’s first flight with special stamps, it was expected that this would take place in the early part of 1968. Accordingly, a set of three stamps, consisting of 4d, 9d, and Is. 6d values, was designed and printed in good time, and put into store in readiness for the great day.

Fourpence was the obvious choice for the lowest value, because this covered the first-class letter rate, ensuring a wide circulation for a stamp designed to publicise a great Anglo-French aviation project. The stamps were “ready for take-off” at short notice —but the airliner wasn’t. The months slipped by, and the work fell behind schedule. Then, at long last, the first Concorde successfully got off the ground at Toulouse and, after more than a year’s delay, the

stamps were finally put on sale on March 3, 1969.

Unfortunatley by this time the Post Office had introduced an innovation of its own—the two-tier letter post. The first-class letter rate was raised to sd, and 4d was retained for second-class mail. Thus the strange situation arose that a stamp depicting the world’s fastest commercial aircraft could be used only on less urgent letters!

Another result of the long delay was the appearance of Concorde stamps from the New Hebrides, before the British ones.

The New Hebrides are a group of small islands in the Pacific which, one feels, are unlikely to be visited by such an aircraft as the Concorde, with its cruising speed of 1450 m.p.h. In another respect, however, New Hebrides stamps for the Concorde were highly appropriate, as the islands are administered as an AngloFrench condominium—an interesting parallel in the political field to the AngloFrench co-operation, which has produced the world’s first supersonic airliner.