Description: KING EDWARD VII - HALF PENNY - GREEN/YELLOW - POST DATE 1911 - LOT 284 These King George V-era stamps printed by Harrison and Somerset House are known as the King Edward VII Provisional Printings. The King came to the throne on the death of his mother, Queen Victoria, on 22 January, 1901, and he died on 6 May 1910. This gives a period of nearly a decade on which to base a collection, and even though there are relatively few values (and no commemoratives!) there is plenty of scope for the collector. The aim of this article is to give an idea of the various possibilities.There were nineteen basic King Edward VII stamps, including both colours of the ½d and 4d values.The ½d was first issued on 1 January, 1902 in blue-green, but the public complained that the colours of the ½d, 2½d and 6d stamps, which shared the same design, were too similar.The King came to the throne on the death of his mother, Queen Victoria, on 22 January, 1901, and he died on 6 May 1910.This gives a period of nearly a decade on which to base a collection, and even though there are relatively few values (and no commemoratives!) there is plenty of scope for the collector. The aim of this article is to give an idea of the various possibilities.There were nineteen basic King Edward VII stamps, including both colours of the ½d and 4d values.Post Office workers were also having problems distinguishing the stamps when sorting letters. Consequently, the colour of the ½d stamp was changed to a lighter colour, yellow-green, which appeared in November 1904.The change of colour of the 4d from green and brown to orange was probably to save money: it was cheaper to print in a single colour.Three different printers were involved in the production of the stamps. De La Rue had been printing Victorian stamps for many years, and the contract awarded to them in 1899 had nearly ten more years to run. When the contract did expire at the end of 1910, De La Rue refused to lower their prices, or even share the work with Harrison & Sons who were duly awarded the new contract from 1 January, 1911.Although this was now in the new reign, most of the new stamps depicting King George V were not ready, and so Harrison began printing from De La Rue’s plates. They could print only those values which were mono-coloured because they did not have the machines necessary to print bi-coloured stamps, so the task of printing the latter fell to the government department at Somerset House. These King George V-era stamps printed by Harrison and Somerset House are known as the King Edward VII Provisional Printings.
Price: 50 GBP
Location: Barnsley
End Time: 2024-10-04T09:27:16.000Z
Shipping Cost: 19.97 GBP
Product Images
Item Specifics
Returns Accepted: ReturnsNotAccepted
Monarch/Regent: Edward VII (1902-1910)
Colour: Green
