Thomas De La Rue: Stamp Printer

My late dad was also a printer, editor of his Newspaper etc.........and a Philatelist - but he never printed a "stamp", even a "fake" but did a lot of FDCs and Special Covers and the Canadian Inverted Seaway (387a) was his dream (realized) !!

Duty on playing cards dates back to 1711. Originally, embossed stamps were used but wrappers were used as an alternative. In 1765 the Duty Ace of Spades was introduced and this is the reason for the elaborate design. A combination of Duty Ace of Spades and/or wrappers was used until 1862 when the duty on the pack was denoted solely by the wrapper up until the abolition of the duty in 1960.

The tradition of showing the duty on the Ace of Spades would continue even after it transferred to the wrapper. So, the second example did not, in this case, denote any duty despite the claim on the card. Also shown, three attractive labels from the boxes of the cards shown.

Another De La Rue Delacryl item. A presentation pack for the Isle of Man Revenue Stamps issued on 1st November 1976. Stamps designed by Jean E. Davie.

Another good De La Rue playing card find. This time a complete unused Bridge set possibly from c1958.  The cards have a sticker from Kendle Milne, a department store in Manchester which was purchased by Harrods in 1919 and was briefly renamed Harrods until the staff complained. It is now part of the House of Fraser.

Here we have a very nice Thomas De La rue embossed cameo sticker on the front of the box, The Laws of Contract Bridge published by De La Rue with some of their pencils and a pair of stamps used to seal the packs of cards. These stamps are mentioned in Glenn Morgan's Dummy Stamps from 2017, see this pdf here.

A handful of commemorative Cinderellas from De La Rue for their centenary year 1955. The orange and green stamp, bottom row, was a special, more rare, version printed in France.

A few more of the British Armed Forces banknotes printed by Thomas De La Rue. One was shown earlier in this thread. These are from the 2nd series printed in 1948 and the 3rd series from 1956. They were originally issued for use in the British Occupied Zone in Germany in an effort to thwart the black market that had appeared after the war.

Also showing a De La Rue Systems Test Note.

I have some more that I will post. All Royal family related. One I found for the actual artist Christian Furr who had no idea his portrait had been used as a watermark. It was special finding him a copy.

Does anyone have a copy of The Inks of De La Rue & Co. and their introduction of synthetic and aniline ingredients c.1850–1910  By Peter Young FRPSL  It was printed by the RPSL and is out of print.

If someone does and would be so kind as to see if there is a section dealing with the fugitive.doubly fugitive inks, and specifically what color inks. I have foend more entries in THe Phalatelic Record (late 1880's)  that seems to indicate it was only certain colors.

If the section isn't too much, a scan would be excellent!

Thank you in advance
Stan

2009 Author : Clive

To my dismay, I discovered that some of the Rhodesia "admirals" 1913 -
1922, are fugitive.
I was sorting through a bunch with very heavy hinge remainders and
paper residue, so I decided to soak them clean in cold water.
The first batch went by without incident, but the second batch had a
few 1/- values, these are various shades of bluish-green, light green,
etc. Almost immediately after adding them to the water, the water
changed to a greenish blue colour. I manage to get the other stamps out
in time, but the 1/- values now look terrible.
I wasn't aware that any of the admirals are fugitive, and I didn't
notice any mention in the catalogue.
Are all the 1/- values fugitive, and are there any other values to look
out for?
Thanks,
Clive

I have found the early Netherlands Indies are all "doubly fugitive" all colours just wash away very fast in water, to my chagrin.