King George VI 1939 2s 6d brown

The stamp we hope to persuade you to add to your GB Gems Affordable Classic Collection this month is the King George VI brown 2s 6d issued in 1939. It was one of three higher values (2s 6d; 5s 0d; 10s 0d) engraved for recess and printed during the early months of the Second World War by Waterlow & Sons. A colour change to yellow-green for this value was made in March 1942, perhaps necessitated by wartime difficulties with ink supplies.

What’s so special about this stamp?
The 2s 6d went on sale on 3 September 1939, the day after Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain went on BBC radio to tell the British people that we had declared war on Germany. For almost six months prior to the issue date letters had arrived in the post from Germany carrying a stamp that celebrated the Fuhrer’s fiftieth birthday (13 April, 1939) and depicted him in an army greatcoat and peaked cap, with a Nazi flag fluttering from a building in the background. Fortuitously Edward Dulac’s magnificent patriotic design for the GB 2s 6d and 5s 0d provided a bold response to Germany’s belligerence. Britain’s stamp displayed our King’s head above the royal arms with lion and unicorn to left and right, and value figures in the top corners. Philatelic commentators regarded it as probably the finest stamp issued by our country since 1840. A sole and slight disappointment lay in the cost of buying one from a local post office. Few average citizens posting their two ounce letters for the cost of a three-halfpenny stamp would have come face-to-face with Dulac’s stirring halfcrown emblems; the majority of these higher values were probably used on parcels, telegrams, special deliveries, or obscure official correspondence. Thankfully newspapers printed enlarged images of the stamps so that even odd folk who did not collect stamps knew what the new issues looked like, and felt proud that mail carrying the stamps criss-crossed the country at the height of the Blitz.