MAFEKING STAMPS

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 73, 30 March 1929, Page 15

MAFEKING STAMPS

During the siege of Mafeking, where thu Chief Scout was the hero of the day, a series of unique postage stamps was produced in the town. They are the only stamps ever made by simple photography. On some of them Sir Robert Baden Powell's head appears. The Mafeking stamps are of the values of Id and 3d. Dr. W. A. Hayes designed the Id stamp, which shows Sergeant-Major Goodyear on a bicycle, and is inscribed "V.R. Siege of Mafeking Local Post." The 3d, which exists in several varieties, was designed by the Chief Paymaster, Captain Greener, and has the portrait of General BadenPowell, the face turned slightly to the' right. This stamp is inscribed "Postage threepence. Mafeking—l9o0 —Siege." These designs were reduced on to a photographic negative, repeated 12 tinics to form a small sheet. From these plates the stamps were printed on the common blue l'crro-prussiate paper familiar to photographers. The photographic work was done by Dr. "D. Taylor, and the sheets were gummed and perforated by Messrs. Townshend and Son, proprietors of The "Mafeking Mail" newspaper. Of the Id cyclist stamps, 947(i were issued; of the 3d stamps with the bust of General Baden-Powell there were (3,072 in a small size and 3,03G in a larger size. There is one extremely rare variety of the small size Baden-Powell stamp, ono sheet having ■ boon printed with the glass side of the negative next to the paper, producing a reversed and slightly blurred print. Of this only seven copies are now known, one of them being in the very fine collection of Mafeking stamps belonging to the King.