PEACE STAMPS

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 31, 6 August 1945, Page 4

PEACE STAMPS

FURTHER DETAILS

ELEVEN DENOMINATIONS

In amplification of his reply to the recent Parliamentary question about the New Zealand Peace stamps to be issued after the end of the war against Japan, the Actmgf PostmasterGeneral (Mr. Jones} stated that the full series comprised 11 denominations ranging from _d to Is.

The _d denomination depicted a beautiful and peaceful New Zealand scene—Lake Matheson and the Southern Alps—and was a fitting introduction to a peace series of stamps. The highest denomination in the series, the Is stamp, incorporated in the design the National Memorial Campanile, Wellington, a symbol of remembrance of the fallen in both wars; while the 9d denomination, depicting the Southern Alps and the Franz Josef Glacier as seen through the chapel window at Waiho Gorge, had been highly commended by those who had seen the proof as an outstanding example of the designing and engraving arts and as an eminently suitable representation of the spirit of thankfulness for the saving of our ways of life. In the remaining denominations tributes were paid to our system of government (ld%; to the people of Britain (14d); to the Royal Family (2d); to the Royal New Zealand Air Force (3d); to the Army in its various branches (4d); to the Navy and Mercantile Marine (sd); to workers on the home front (6d)^and to the service and devotion of youth in the nations cause (8d). WELLINGTON DESIGNER. All the stamps had been designed by Mr. J. Berry, of Wellington, who had designed a considerable number of New Zealand stamps. The Peace stamps were to be printed in England by three well-known stamp-printing firms— two denominations by Messrs. Bradbury Wilkinson and Co., Ltd., two by Messrs. Harrison and Sons, Ltd., and the remainder by Messrs. Waterlow and Sons, Ltd. With the exception of the l_d and Is values, for which the collegravure process was being adopted, all the stamps were being produced by the intaglio process. The Minister said, that initially designs for the stamps had been obtained from several well-known artists and stamp designers and these had been adjudicated upon by a special committee, consisting of Sir R. Heaton Rhodes (president* of the Philatelic Society of New Zealand) and other representatives of the philatelic world, as well as representatives of the Post Office. In the opinion of the committee, Mr. Berry's designs had been outstanding and had portrayed in excellent fashion arid in highly good taste not only the many tributes that the poeple of the Dominion felt were due but also the transitional stages from war to peace. "Die proofs of all the denominations have now been received in the Dominion," said the Minister, "and I am convinced that most people will agree when they see them that the stamps rank with the best of New Zealand's outstanding issues. They will certainly be a credit to New Zealand and do full justice to the great occasion they are intended to commemorajt-,'* .