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Post by tallanent on Feb 13, 2015 23:52:35 GMT
As suggested by London Bus, I will here show a study on the labels relating to the Coronation of 1937
This will take a little while to get in place, but I hope that the resulting details on these cinderalla labels will be worth while to all those who collect or even just have a passing intrest in this area of collecting
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Post by tallanent on Feb 13, 2015 23:54:05 GMT
In the Commemorative Labels catalogue issued by the Cinderella stamp club there is listed six different types of labels for the Coronation of King George VI in 1937.
Although as a basic list, this publication is correct, I would like to show members here illustrations of the items in colour, as in the small hand book illustrations are limited and also in black and white (which does not show the design very well) and in addition cover each issue showing variations that show that the some of the "stamps" can be assigned to different plates or possitions on the printing plate.
To all those who collect cinderella items, I hope that the information that I present in the following posts will be of use and that any collection of these can be expanded as the items are still easy to obtain at a vey low price.
The following post will list the basic types as per the catalogue after which I will go into more details one issue at a time.
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Post by tallanent on Feb 13, 2015 23:54:56 GMT
The basic labels as listed in the catalogue are as follows ...
Posterstamp Publicty Ltd - sheet of 8
Houses of Parliament
Harrisons Regalia set - sheet of 12
Vallancey's Picture set - sheet of 60
Parkshaw's Picture set - sheet of 60
Coronation seal
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Post by tallanent on Feb 14, 2015 0:01:38 GMT
First we need to be able to assign the stamps to the correct issue and this is a fairly easy task as each issue, even where there are sheets of 8, 12 or 60 different designs can be identified from just seeing one copy of each - as all within the respective sheets are similar. To this end I will first show one label from each issue so that any of these can be assigned to the correct publisher ..  Poster Stamp Publicity Ltd |
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Post by tallanent on Feb 14, 2015 0:02:42 GMT
 Houses of Parlliament |
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Post by tallanent on Feb 14, 2015 0:03:49 GMT
 Coronation Seal |
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Post by tallanent on Feb 14, 2015 0:04:30 GMT
 Harrison and Sons - Regalia set |
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Post by tallanent on Feb 14, 2015 0:07:22 GMT
The following two sets are very similar. Both were produced in sheets of 60. Both were printed by Harrison and Sons Ltd And both sheets contain some identical designs. However these are easy to seperate due to the colour of the border ...  Vallancey's Picture set - Violet frame  Parkshaw's Picture set - Brown frame |
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Post by tallanent on Feb 14, 2015 0:09:46 GMT
With this basic information and using the illustration above the collector should now be able to assign any of these labels to their correct issue.
So now we come to the more involved task of dealing with each issue one by one.
For this I will deal with the easiest ones first, (or at least those where I have a limited amount of information).
This will be the single design issues of the coronation seal and the Houses of Parlaiament, followed by the Poster Stamp sheet of 8 and so on ...
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Post by tallanent on Feb 14, 2015 0:12:30 GMT
Coronation Seal
The catalogue lists this as "Separate pictures of the King and Queen in dark blue in a brown frame"
No other details are given, however just by looking at the stamp we can see the inscription "Imperial order of the Daughters of the Empire" at the base within the circular wheel between the picture frames.
As for sheet size / layout I have no record of this and these labels seem to be the most difficult of the 6 basic types to find.
A number of examples that turn up have a straight / imperf edge and this is known at the right (as illustrated above) or on the bottom edge. Examples perforated all round seem to be less common than those with one straight edge.
In the late 1980's it was mentioned to me that this label also exists with the pictures in red - requests for sight of this item or a picture produced no results and every dealer I have mentioned this to over the years states that they have never seen one in red. My conclusion at this time is that such does not exist (but I keep looking just in case)
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Post by tallanent on Feb 14, 2015 0:27:56 GMT
Houses of Parliament The catalogue lists this as "Engr. stamps inscribed George VI, Coronation, Queen Elizabeth - Perf in blue, red, brown or green" with a scarcity rating of B for a single stamp - (not easy to find) No other details are given. This sheet was printed in sheets of 25, (5x5), and I can confirm that the four colours noted are all known. As the design and sheet layout are all the same (as far as I know) I will refrain from posting scans of all the colours unless requested (for confirmation). These stamps were produced for "The London Stamp exhibition 1937, Dorland Hall, Piccadilly Circus - October 16th to the 23rd" This and the fact that they were a souvenir of the coronation are stated on the left and right margins of the sheet. The date (October 1937) is rather late for a coronation item and I wonder if these were planed then delayed for some reason, then revived for the exhibition. It would be intresting to find one (tied) on cover that pre-dates the exhibition - although I have never seen one.  Full sheet showing the layout and inscriptions |
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Post by tallanent on Feb 14, 2015 0:31:28 GMT
These two types are, (as far as I am concerned), fairly easy with regards to listing the details - although the published details have already been expanded as noted.
From this point on things start to get a little more complex as the Poster Stamps sheet of 8 and the Harrison's sheet of 12 can be assigned to plates, and in some cases, even single examples can be plated.
So, we now move on with the next issue ....
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Post by tallanent on Feb 14, 2015 0:37:08 GMT
Posterstamp Publicity LtdFirst the details from the catalogue .. "Sheet of 8 stamps costing 1/- in blue, red or purple." It then lists the eight designs, notes that the sheet is perforated and rates single stamps as relatively common and full sheets as rare.  Full sheet The illustration of the sheet is what I believe to be the correct way up given the inscription in the margins and the application of the perforations. Thus from left to right we have the designs .. 1 .. The Houses of Parliament 2 .. Windsor Castle 3 .. The Coronation coach 4 .. The King and Queen 5 .. Princess Margret Rose 6 .. Princess Elizabeth 7 .. The Coronation chair 8 .. Westminster Abbey I can confirm all three colours as I have these in full sheets and the application of the perforations is the same on all the sheets I have seen. In addition to the details listed we can add the following to all the sheets ... The printing is on white wove paper The sheets are line perforated gauge 12 ½ The gum type has been stated as being "fracture shinny gum" - (this was by another collector) - but what this actually is I have no idea. I would describe it as a thick gum, slightly streaky. There is no watermark in the paper, however, a pseudo watermark is printed on top of the gum in grey black  Pseudo watermark - (sheet rotated 90 degrees clockwise)
The catalogue title appears to have been taken from the inscription at the bottom of each stamp which reads "Posterstamp Publicity Ltd London" but the wording on the logo on the rear reads "The British Poster Stamp Assn" I have seen them refered to under both titles and I just settle for "Poster Stamp" as this was the only one they produced for the coronation 1937.
The next point to be considered is the plates used for their production.
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Post by tallanent on Feb 14, 2015 0:44:05 GMT
Poster Stamp - PlatesAssignment of a given impression to its possition in the sheet is a simple matter of matching the design of the stamp with the illustration of the full sheet above. The area that has caused some debate with dealers is when I state that examples they are offering are from plate 1, which is by far the more common, and I am looking for examples from plate 2. This is usually met with the statement that they are all the same and were all printed from the same plate - hopefully the following will prove that there are in fact Two easily identifiable plates. The following tests can be applied to all the stamps in the sheet, both horizontal and vertical format, and once you have a few examples (in the flesh) they are simple to spot ..  Plate 1  Plate 2  Plate 1  Plate 2
Plate 1 .. Larger, wider lettering
Plate 2 .. Smaller, narrower lettering
The size of the lettering is most noticiable in the description at the bottom of the label
Plate 1 .. No spurs to the letters
Plate 2 .. Spurs to the letters
This is most noticiable on the 'N' in 'CORONATION' at the top
Plate 1 .. size = 36 1/2mm x 23mm
Plate 2 .. size = 35 1/2mm x 23mm
It would also appear that during the production of these labels (from plate 1), a small flaw developed on three of the labels. These will be covered next ...
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Post by tallanent on Feb 14, 2015 0:50:04 GMT
Poster Stamp - flawsAs already stated, I have found three flaws on this issue. All these come from plate 1 printings ...  Coloured mark below the left of the crown  Mark below the first 'N' of 'CORONATION'  Mark between the tower and the 'A' of 'MAY'
To trace these flaws - full sheets are required and I have recorded the following ...
Plate 1 - Printed in red
A .. with no flaws on the stamps
B .. with all three flaws (as illustrated)
Plate 1 - Printed in Purple
A .. with no flaws on the stamps
Plate 1 - Printed in blue
A .. with no flaws on the stamps
B .. with all three flaws (as illustrated)
The presence of these flaws on some sheets and single impressions, and the fact that across all the printings detailed above, they are the same, shows that this was something on the plate or cylinder that was introduced at some point after printings had been made.
That concludeds the details I have regarding the poster stamp issue ... so we have (with my own numbers) ..
PS1Ra .. Plate 1 in red
PS1Rb .. Plate 1 in red with flaws on 3 stamps
PS1Ba .. Plate 1 in blue
PS1Bb .. Plate 1 in blue with flaws on 3 stamps
PS1Pa .. Plate 1 in purple
PS2Pa .. Plate 2 in purple - Only single stamps recorded by me
Sheets have been reported but these are as yet unconfirmed
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Post by tallanent on Feb 14, 2015 1:31:38 GMT
The next two issues I will deal with are the sheets of 60. One published by Parkshaw and the other by Vallancey.
The catalogue details for both are very similar - understandable given that both are in the same format, were produced and printed by the same company and sold for the same price -
Both these sets are rated as common for single labels and as "not easy to find" for the full sheets. From experience, the Parkshaw issue turns up more often than the Vallancey - and it is this issue that I will deal with first.
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Post by tallanent on Feb 14, 2015 1:35:04 GMT
Parkshaw's Picture Set
As already noted above, the frame of this issue is in brown.
It is noted that the centre picture on some stamps may be brown, yellow & brown, red & brown or blue & brown within the same sheet. (More on this a little later).
The sheet size of 60 is noted along with the selling price of 1/- and a comment that about 15,000,000 stamps were sold - (I will come back to this point later as well). It then notes that the stamps were engraved and printed by Harrison & Sons and issued perforated, this probably being done also by the printers.
With that all noted from the catalogue, I will now show some of the missing details that I feel make up the full set, confirm the details listed above with illustrated items, prove the existance of two plates and give (what I believe is) the correct quantity for the number sold.
Numbers sold
The number of stamps ( 150,000,000 ) quoted in the catalogue as the number sold was the quantity sold by the printers under the terms of the contract to the publishers. Thus the total number of stamps when supplied was 205,000 sheets.
As these were sold in an envelope with an information sheet, and it is known that one label from the sheet was affixed to the front of the envelope, it is possible that as many as the odd 5,000 sheets were broken up for this use.
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Post by tallanent on Feb 14, 2015 1:40:16 GMT
Most of the details stated in the catalogue are confirmed by the printing on the envelopes that the stamps were sold in. This is a plain brown envelope (4 inches x 6 inches) printed in black on the front only.  This shows the point that was made earlier regarding sheets broken down to affix a sample label on the front of the envelope. American / Canadian markets ...In addition to those sold in England for 1/- per set .. it would appear that some of these were also sold either in America or Canada. I have been unable to find any evidence if Parkshaw's did this themselves or through an agent - or if these were brought by someone else and then re-sold. With these issues the price of 1/- means nothing, and these envelopes are hand stamped with the value in cents as illustrated below ..  The other point to make here is regarding the size of the envelope and the printed sheet. For the sheet to be placed in the envelope, it had to be folded into quarters and it is this that makes complete sheets difficult to find.
Most have either split into smaller sections or in the cases where they are still intact - there is a lot of perf seperation horizontally and verticially in the middle of the sheet.
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Post by tallanent on Feb 14, 2015 1:43:16 GMT
Information sheetAlso included as part of the package, was an information sheet. This was printed in black on yellow/orange paper and was folded in half to fit in the envelope. This again confirms the publishers name and address at the bottom. Note - The black dot at the top left corner is a printed dot and not a hole as it appears in the picture.  The reverse has no printing
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Post by tallanent on Feb 14, 2015 1:47:31 GMT
With the stamps, as already mentioned, some are printed totally in brown whilst others within the sheet have the centre in red, blue or yellow. This means that the sheet went through four printing presses, (one for each colour) and as such the alignment of the overlay colour is sometimes not possitioned correctly. I would ask the reader to just take my word for this for the moment, as this will be confirmed at the end of this study when I will illustrate items on cover. The sheet is illustrated in two halves (top and bottom) and I will not list all 60 designs at this time - this can be added should the information be required. I have been unable to find any way to assign single stamps to plate 1 or plate 2 - and as such the only way to be certain of plate 2 impressions is to get the sheet that shows the plate number in the margin. (This will be shown in the next post) The sheet illustrated here is from plate 1  Top half of the sheet  Bottom half of the sheet The inscription at the bottom confirms the printers as detailed earlier
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Post by tallanent on Feb 14, 2015 1:50:46 GMT
Plate 2Plate 2 is identified by the small plate number in the bottom right corner. Apart from this all the stamps and inscription are the same  Plate 2 corner block Vallancey's Set
The details in the catalogue are basicly the same as for the Parkshaw set with the exception that it does not give a total figure for the stamps.
I have never seen an envelope or information insert for this issue, and apart from some single copies, have only one unbroken sheet which I am anable to scan due to size.
The layout of the sheet and marginal inscription are the same as for plate 1 of the Parkshaw set - however, being produced by the same printers, I would guess that there is a plate 2 still waiting to be found / recorded.
I will (if required) list the design details for this later ..
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Post by tallanent on Feb 14, 2015 1:56:30 GMT
We are now left with the Harrison's Regalia set, and an unrecorded label and some covers - so I will now try and cover these and finish this little study. The un-recorded label (this is as far as I am aware - as I have not been able to find any reference to it) was part of the "Sunday is Special" campaign that was around in 1936 - 1937 The only information I can give on this is what is seen from the illustration below and my stock of these items (which comprises one other single stamp).... Design .. see the illustration below Perforation .. line perf Printed in sheets - size unknown as this copy has margins top and left |
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Post by tallanent on Feb 14, 2015 2:00:39 GMT
We now come to the Harrison's Regalia Set issued in sheets of 12.
Looking at the catalogue this would appear to be an easy issue to assign, however, it can get a little more involved than would appear to be the case at first sight.
To start I will quote the catalogue and then I will go into greater detail ...
The Catalogue states ...
Harrison's Regalia Set. Coronation of KGVI. Sheet of 12 stamps showing diff coronation items such as Imperial State Crown and St. Edward's staff. Produced by Albert Harris when he heard in 1936 that there would be no special commem. postage stamps (although in fact one was issued later). Designed by T A Chaplin. Printed by Harrisons by the same process used for stamps supplied to the British PO. Perf in black, red, blue, green, brown or mauve. Sold at 1/- per sheet or 6/- per set
A few points here for confirmation ..
Produced by Harrison's - this is confirmed by the firms name at the bottom of the labels. (see the large illustration at the start of this thread)
The fact that these stamps were produced for Albert Harris and designed by T A Chaplin was confirmed in a phone call to Harrison's archives but they had no details on the numbers printed. They did state that they thought that the plate would have been larger than one sheet, due to the size of their machines and I will come to this later.
With regards to the price - I have found no evidence that these were sold as single sheets (although this is possible) - but can confirm the set price of 6/-
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Post by tallanent on Feb 14, 2015 2:05:37 GMT
The Harrison's Regalaia Set consists of an envelope (two variations), and information insert card, (two variations) and sheets of 12 labels printed in the six colours already noted. I will deal with these in this order and when we get to the sheets of stamps I intend to show that there are at least 36 variations of the sheets and that some of the labels can be assign to their correct plates from single copies. The EnvelopesThe envelopes that the stamps and the card were sold in are standard brown printed on the front in black. these are all 220mm x 141mm. The text on the front confirms the colours produced and the price per set as noted above. Regulations at the time where that "labels" such as these coronation types, were not to be used on the fronts of letters going through the post, hence the note on the Parkshaw's envelope illustrated earlier. it would appear that at some time after these sets had been on sale, it was required to state this on the envelope and this was done by a three line hand-stamp. I would guess that this happened very late in the sale of the sets as most envelopes I have seen do not have this addition.  The envelope for the set of labels Confirms price, colours and the insert card  Part envelope with the additional hand stamp |
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Post by tallanent on Feb 14, 2015 2:10:38 GMT
The Folder as it is called on the envelope, is a piece of folded white card printed on one side only. The card is 202mm x 254mm (or 202 x 127 when folded). There are two variations of the card, however, as the differences are small I will show only what I call type 1 and describe the three points that allow type 2 to be spotted. Both these cards seem to turn up in equal numbers..  The basic information card Type 2 Card
The identification of the type 2 information card is done by three small errors that appear to be constant. These are ..
1 .. Left side - ST. EDWARD'S CROWN
On the first line of text, the letter 'f' is missing from 'rim or circle of'
2 .. Right side - THE SWORD OF STATE
The word 'gold' at the end of the first line has the bottom of the letters 'gol' missing
3 .. Right side - THE ROYAL SCEPTRE
On the last line of text, the comma is missing after 'King's'
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Post by stampgeezer on Feb 14, 2015 2:13:17 GMT
Thank you tallanent, what lovely issues and what an informative thread. I have bookmarked this under my reference bookmarks.
Theron.
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Post by tallanent on Feb 14, 2015 2:17:26 GMT
It is now 2:15am here and I need to get some rest, so I will leave this to be viewed and will finish with the labels from this issue tomorrow
I hope that what is presented here so far is useful and even if not your collecting area, presents a little insight into what I find an intresting area
Untill tomorrow ... Good night and enjoy
Allan
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Admin
Administrator 
Posts: 2,676
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Post by Admin on Feb 14, 2015 4:45:56 GMT
Excellent thread, rod222 will enjoy this one over his morning cupa and iced VoVo |
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Post by tallanent on Feb 14, 2015 10:51:58 GMT
We now come to the sheets of 12 stamps .. Just before we get onto these, I would like to point out that the sheets within the envelope (full set at 6/-) were supplied in a plastic sleeve. These were very flimsy and thankfully they all fell apart and most were discarded as I have no doubt that they would have damged the stamps over time. A single plastic held all 6 sheets. As such these are quite scarce but of no real intrest unless (as collectors do) we want to show all the items. First we need to look at the full sheet ..  Full sheet of 12 designs From this example we can see that the left and top margins are imperforate (single hole extention to the left), and that the sheets were comb perforated.
As stated earlier, Harrison's had said that they believed the plate for the production would have been larger than a single sheet, and this got me looking at other items in my collection as well as getting on long term loan items from other collectors.
This revealed that there were variations in the ways that the margins were perforated as follows ..
1 .. imperf top and left (as illustrated)
2 .. imperf top and right
3 .. imperf left only
4 .. imperf right only
This gave the impression straight away that the plate for the printing of these labels was in fact the size to hold six sheets and that the were printed, perforated and then seperated. This is commonly known as "on the web" where the printed sheets go from one process to the next and so on.
It should be noted that it was possible that the plate size was only 4 sheets, however, I felt that 6 was more likely and this was to be proved right as will be shown ..
With this information to show the plate layout, the assignment of the top 2 sheets was simple due to them having at imperforate margins on two sides, the bottom of the plate would need a little more sorting out as these were imperf on the left or right only
To achieve this a large number of sheets were examined to confirm the details that follow, and charts were drawn up to log all the variations.
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Post by tallanent on Feb 14, 2015 10:55:24 GMT
The first task is to assign each impression within each sheet on the printed plate and to do this I have drawn up a grid to show the layout of the plate, with each sheet lettered from A to F. Within each sheet the designs of the impressions are the same, so these are numbered 1 to 12 (shown here on sheet C). In this way impression C1 - is St. Edward's Crown and impression A1 would be the same design but from the sheet above in the plate.  The designs (numbered 1 to 12) are ...
1 .. St Edward's Crown
2 .. The Coronation Ring
3 .. The King's Orb
4 .. The Ampulla
5 .. St George's Spurs
6 .. The Imperial State Crown
7 .. Curtana or Sword of Mercy
8 .. St Edward's Staff
9 .. Sword of State
10 .. King's Sceptre with the Dove
11 .. Anointing Spoon
12 .. King's Royal Sceptre
With this information - a simple letter and number combination allows any label to be assigned to its position on the plate - or in the case of full sheets, for any label within the sheet to be referenced.
This may appear to be a little pointless, but as I was setting about trying to prove that there were 6 sheets in the plate and to be able to identify them, this was an essential first step.
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