After the sudden death of King George VI in February 1952, the post office was unprepared for a new issue of stamps. The eventual definitive issues did not come into circulation until late 1952, and completion of the entire set lasted until 1954. These stamps were known as wildings and are covered in a separate article.

At the time, definitive stamps were common place, being used on all mail, as commemoratives were issued few and far between, and only for very special occasions. In today’s society Royal Mail issue commemorative stamps every few weeks, designed primarily for collectors and advertising. Back in the early 50’s, stamps were purely functional and even though collectors were active, The Post Office had not considered stamps as a source of financial income. It is believed, although I cannot confirm, that roughly two thirds of all commemorative stamps issued are never used for postage!

The first commemorative issue during the reign of Queen Elizabeth II, was produced to celebrate her coronation. They were issued in a set of four : 2 1/2d Red, 4d Blue, 1’3d Green and 1’6d Dark Blue. These colours were chosen to correspond with the wilding issues previously released. The idea was to simplify the process of mail sorting for the postal workers, so red stamps, regardless of design, were valued at 2 1/2d, etc.

The coronation took place on 3rd June 1953, and official first day covers were sold by the post office in commemoration. The stamps were a huge success and the issues of the 2 1/2d red value alone totalled just over 415 million! Post offices were told to sell them with preference over normal stamps and they became as common place on all mail coming out of the post office. Wildings were issued from vending machines at the time, so became common on post sent from outside of post offices.

Modern day stamps are issued and then withdrawn from sale after a year, but back in 1953 the stamp were never officially withdrawn, they just kept selling them until the stock ran out.

In 1955 the Wilding issue was running low of stock apart from the primary values, and it was proposed that the stamps which were due to be reprinted, were produced with a different watermark. This was for a number of reasons, one of which was so that the numbers of stamps issued could be related to the number of stamps sold. Each post office would report back when they had used up all their stock of old watermarked stamps, and the new ones were introduced.

In 1955, during the release of the Wildings, it was decided that a new range of high value stamps were also required, as once again stocks of the King George VI issues were also running low. These issues became known as the “Castle” high values, the first of many castle designs.

The 2’6d was issued in brown and showed an engraving of Carrickfergus Castle, the 5s red Caernarvon Castle, 10s blue Edinburgh Castle and the £1 black depicted Windsor castle. The stamps were designed by L Lamb and all incorporated the Queens head designed by Dorothy Wilding. The were initially printed in recess by De La Rue, but subsequent issues had different printers.

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