Stamp Magazine - July 2021

In this issue

Our July issue looks back 50 years, to Britain’s first commemorative stamp programme of the decimal era. It didn’t all go according to plan. We also present a special feature encouraging everyone to look beyond the rates and routes of postal history and consider the senders and recipients. Their stories are easier to research than ever before, as our examples demonstrate. Elsewhere in the magazine there’s a study of Sweden’s unusual Landstorm issues of World War I, semi-postals with surcharges to raise money for military uniforms. Commonwealth Classics remembers a beautiful pictorial issue of the British Solomon Islands, while Great Engravers celebrates the work of Pierre Albuisson, one of the great French stamp artists. Black Magic explains why some Penny Black covers feature horizontal strips of the stamp, but few have rectangular blocks. Our news pages have details of Royal Mail’s special issues honouring Prince Philip, and celebrating the music of Paul McCartney, and reveal the international controversy which could see the stamps of a British overseas territory declared invalid.