FOR STAMP COLLECTORS

Evening Star, Issue 22956, 13 May 1938, Page 3

FOR STAMP COLLECTORS

[By Philatelist.]

New Zealand Pictorial Stamps.—The latest supplies of the 4d pictorial stamps which were issued early this month, have been printed from two new plates. Two different printings were made, one from the old centre plate, and a new border plate with the identification mark 2A under the ninth stamp in the last row, and the other from new plates for both the centre and the border showing two plate numbers. The plate number (2) for the centre plate appears under the second stamp m the last row, and the border plate number (2A) is printed under the ninth stamp in the last row. King George VI. Stamps.—Two new plates, numbers 9 and 10, have been used to print new stocks of the id King George VI. stamps. The _ld King George VI. stamp will bo issued not later than July 1, The following plates have been used for the production of the stamps:—3, 4, 5 (Booklets), 6. 7,8, 11, 12, and 13. The identification marks on plates 6 to 13 (including the id plates) appear opposite the fourth horizontal row on both the left and the right vertical selvedges. The frames of the halfpenny and penny King George ‘ VI. stamps were drawn by Mr W. J. Gooch, of Wellington. A new dandy-roll was used to produce the watermark in the paper upon which the King George VI. stamps are printed.

Coronation Stamps.—The numbers of New Zealand, Cook Islands, and Niue Coronation etamps sold were as follows: —ld—New Zealand 38,455,554, Cook Islands 737,572, Niue 730,429; . 2id—--1,564,496, 569,108, and 575,288; 6d—--2,079,611, 541,657, and 547,000.

Health Stamps.—The number of 1937 health stamps sold was 897,035.

Niue and Cook .Islands Stamps.— “First-day” covers bearing the new Is, 2s, and 3s stamps will not reach New Zealand from Rarotonga and Niue until June 1 and 5 respectively. The vignette of the Cook Islands and Niue stamps of the Is denomination was reproduced from a photograph by Bertram Park, London. CURIOUS TYPES. Do you ever look through your album to find how many curious types of stamp design may be found? Of course, it is rather better to do this with the stamp catalogue than with your own album for two reasons. First you will see more examples, and secondly you will, without doubt, learn Vnore than from your own collection, because you already know tho stamps which you have in that. One such curiosity comes to light it you look at the illustrations of the stamps from Portugal in the catalogue. You will see that from 1899 to 1910 this country issued privileged stamps for the use of civilian rifle clubs. The design for all these stamps is crossed rifles, the yearly difference being that there was a change in the colour. There is no value stated, and in that respect they are somewhat similar to the style of the stamps this country issued for the use of the Geographical Society of Lisbon. Although the standard of shooting is high in this country, it is one might almost say in spite of, rather than because of, the support which is given. In Brussels, for instance, there is a well-known and excellent building where one can with ease enjoy this sport. It is called the “ Tir National,” and on Sunday mornings one sees a great number of civilians going to this place to have a few rounds. In England it is not nearly so easy to handle a full-bore rifle, because there is a difficulty about the safety of regions in which to shoot. Luckily the practice which may he obtained using what is called a smallbore rifle—or a miniature rifle—is of great value when one comes to use the larger boro weapon. It is hardly correct to call it a miniature rifle because these weapons may be just as heavy as the full bore, and they are quite sufficiently powerful and accurate to kill at a distance of a quarter of a mile. Well, the finding of such a stamp as the Portuguese quoted may easily lead one to continue the search for other stamps which display rifles as major parts of the design. It is surprising to find what a number of such specimens exist.

The best action picture you will see is the 1931 issue from Rumania—'the 25 bani value of this set which was brought out to commemorate the centenary of the Rumanian army. The illustration is well worth careful scrutiny, for the position of the hands of the soldier, who is obviously using the bayonet as a weapon of attack, is decidedly odd. Try grasping anything even slightly resembling a rifle in the manner shown, and see if you could deliver a strong blow. Although the Army experiences of the writer are a long way off, yet he cannot remember being instructed in any way like that! There is a rather attractive stamp from Greece (Epirus) which was issued in March, 1914. It shows a Grecian soldier firing, and the uniform of these troops is very picturesque—at least to the eye of the Western European. The stamp is quite a common one, so probably most readers will be able to refer to it. Russia has issued some very curious designs, some of which one would have thought better had they not been issued. The idea of showing revolutionary street fighting (or at least the barricades) seems to be recalling unpleasant episodes in the history of a country, and these would surely be better forgotten. However, _ they must be cited as examples showing rifles. Turkey during the Great War had many stamps showing soldiers in action. The 25 piastre of the 1916 issue shows a view of a sentry, whilst the next year saw the production of the stamp with soldiers in the trenches as the central theme. Then 1920 was the date of the production of some somewhat curious efforts. Turkey prepared a set of stamps to be used in Egypt in anticipation of its conquest by the Turks. As this did not happen, the stamps prepared could not be used, except by overprinting them. One of the, designs of this set was a sentry on guard at Beexsheba. Some of the Hungarian stamps which came out in 1916 as charity stamps show a soldier in an attitude very far from charitable! In 1931 Yugoslavia issued the stamp illustrated, in aid of the Yugoslavian War Memorial Fund, the statue to be erected in Paris. It was one of a set of three, and though the two other stamps are not of the same design, this one at any rate has a most appropriate design for a war memorial fund. Latvia in 1932 had _ a set of five stamps for a militia maintenance fund. That shown was the second value, the lowest one having a picture of troops on the march.

GERMANS DISAPPOINT PHILATELISTS. When Hitler marched into Austria keen stamp collectors were on tiptoe. Soon, they thought, letters would be coming from Austria bearing the old Austrian stamps with the surcharge “ Ostmark ” —which Hitler says is to be the name of that territory. A post card received in London from Austria on April 14 suggests that this will not be the case. It bore the usual Austrian stamps without surcharge, the only difference being that, whereas under Schuschnigg the rate on a foreign post card was 35 groschen, my post card carried only 23 groschen—apparently the German rate translated into Austrian currency. It would thus seem that the German authorities are using up the stock of Austrian stamps in the ordinary way before introducing German stamps into Austria. But philatelists had a chance on the occasion of Hitler’s first visit to Vienna after the coup d’etat, when German stamps were used with the postmark Der Fuehrer in Wien. —London correspondent.