Queen Elizabeth - A Younge Queen.

 Definitive Tour.
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Queen Elizabeth II
      
         After researching for the 60th Anniversary Issue post in this blog I have become more interested in stamps featuring Queen Elizabeth II. I have decided to do a few more posts looking at her life in greater detail through the stamps of New Zealand. This post covers her early life and photos on stamps, her coronation, then the first 1953 - 1955 definitive issues. For extra interest, I've included a few Postal History items as well.


Princess Elizabeth.
        Now, let's start by looking at the young Princess Elizabeth before she became Queen Elizabeth II. First her parents:-
  
1937 Coronation of King George VI & Queen Mary.

          Her father was the second son of King George V and Queen Mary, her mother was the youngest daughter of Scottish aristocrat Claude Bowes-Lyon, 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne. In 1936 following the abdication from the throne of his elder brother (King Edward VIII), the Duke of York became King George VI. This placed the young Princess Elizabeth next in line to the throne. 
         The coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth took place at Westminster Abbey the following year, in 1937. Notice this Queen did not have a Roman numeral after her name since she was not a ruling monarch.


         They had two daughters, Princess Elizabeth (now Queen Elizabeth II), born in 1926 
and Princess Margaret, born in 1930.

          Elizabeth was born in London and educated privately at home. When her father acceded to the throne as King George VI in 1936 on the abdication of his brother King Edward VIII, Elizabeth became the heir presumptive, next in line for the throne. She began to undertake public duties during the Second World War, in which she also served in the Auxiliary Territorial Service. When her father was overseas or later when he became ill she would often be found standing in for him on official duties. In 1947, she married Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, with whom she has four children: Charles, Anne, Andrew, and Edward 
Queen Elizabeth & Prince Philip. 

   
Charles                                 Anne                                 Andrew                                 Edward
These stamps with two values come from a series issued to raise funding for Children's Health Camps. You can see this entire collection, from 1929 until today, in the pages above, under the title of this blog.

1953 Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.
           On the 6th February 1952, while Princess Elizabeth and her husband were touring in Kenya, the news reached them that her father had died and she was now Queen. They rushed home to England, cancelling the remainder of their trip to Australia and New Zealand. 
          On 2nd June 1953, the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II took place at Westminster Abbey, London. This event was nearly 17 months after Queen Elizabeth II succeeded her father, King George VI. Her coronation service was the first to be televised and so was seen in many parts of the British Commonwealth and other parts of the world.
          To mark this event New Zealand issued a set of five values showing different aspects of the coronation of the young Queen Elizabeth II.

 
Crown & Royal Sceptre - 1/6.                                 Buckingham Palace - 2d
 
 
The State Coach - 4d.

                           
Queen Elizabeth II - 3d                                      Westminster Abbey - 8d

1953 1/6 Coronation lower selvedge block of 4 where the bottom 2 stamps have an offset strip showing the frame & name on the back. Notice there appears to be a slight offsetting over the rest of the stamps. The star of paper watermark
is also showing through as well.

         
 Two examples 1953 2d Coronation Buckingham Palace with vertical pre-printing creases through the middle of the stamp which when flattened out, left white unprinted strips.

1953 Royal Visit to New Zealand.
The new queen and her husband embarked on a tour of the Commonwealth that she ruled over. Of course, New Zealand was included in that tour. To mark this important occasion New Zealand issued a pair of postage stamps.
 
They arrived in the RMS Gothic late in 1953. This ship had been the SS Gothic but after being given a complete the refit, including a white-painted hull, she was renamed the RMS Gothic. She was then used for Queen Elizabeth II's coronation world tour in 1953 -54. This stamp was prepared for the 1952 Royal Tour but never issued.
 
Prepared for the 1952 tour cancelled due to the death of King George VI.

1953 Royal Visit 3d with the lower frame including New Zealand offset on the back.
What is most obvious about this is the mirror image of the words 'NEW ZEALAND.'


While Queen Elizabeth was in New Zealand she delivered her first Christmas Message to the British Commonwealth of Nations. Early in 1954, she became the first ruling sovereign to opened Parliament.
                       
2012 Diamond Jubilee.                                                2001 Royal Visits. 
1953 Christmas Message, Auckland.                 State Opening of Parliament, 1954.

 1954 Queen Elizabeth II Definitive Issue.
Following the coronation, a new definitive series was issued by New Zealand. This issue followed the pattern of earlier royal definitive issues by depicting a portrait of the new Queen. But unlike earlier definitives, three portraits were used instead of the usual one.

Previous Definitive Issues. 
     
Queen Victoria                      Edward VII                            George V                        George VI

 Lower Values.
         This Queen Elizabeth II issue can be divided into three different subsets. First came the lower values each showing the same portrait with the values and colour changed for each domination. It is a clear and attractive design showing the Kowhai flower in the upper left with the four stars of the Southern Cross to the bottom right.
                               
½d (with stars.)                                  1d (with stars.)                                   1½d (with stars.)
   
2d (with stars.)                      3d (with stars.)                      4d (with stars.)

 
6d (with stars.)                    8d (with stars.)

Middle Values.
          Next came the four middle values which had an outer brighter coloured frame enclosing a sepia or black portrait of Queen Elizabeth. I like these attractive stamps with their two colour design. Again there is the Kowhai flower, this time in the top right corner with the Southern Cross in the bottom right.

                                      
9d - Sepia & Green                                                           1/- Black & Red. 

 
      1/6 - Black & Blue.                 1/9 - Black & Orange.

Colour Shift Error.
         On the block of four stamps below we see the black has shifted lower than it should have been. This piece is of particular interest since it is the corner of a sheet showing the printers plate numbers on the selvedge. You can clearly see that the black plate number is lower than the red plate number so it is most likely that the entire sheet had this same flaw. 
 

Higher Values.
          Finally, the high values depicted the Queen riding on a horse in dress uniform with her crown in the top left corner. This set returned to single colour stamps. I think New Zealand missed an opportunity here to take what are four good stamps and turn them into really great stamps by adding a second colour to the design.

                  
2/6 - Brown                                              3/- Green                                           5/- Red

10/- Blue

First Day Covers



 1954 Queen Elizabeth II Officials.
          In 1954 New Zealand made another change when the Queen Elizabeth II Officials were issued with a completely different design rather than the usual "Official" overprints. The design appears simple with a side portrait of the Queen in nine different colours but have a look at the enlarged detail below. 

To view all the 'Official stamps produced by New Zealand visit An Official Post.

    
1d Official                            1½d Official                            2d Official                            2½d official


   
3d Official                           4d Official                           9d Official

 
1/- Official                            3/- Official

It is interesting to notice the detail which James Berry the designer put into these simple stamps. The background is entirely made up with tiny N.Z.

Official Covers.

O.H.M.S (On Her Majesty's Service). A 6d overprint official used on an official cover.   


"ON RAILWAY BUSINESS ONLY" Official 4d used by a Government Department.


State Insurance official cover.

Official Overprints.
                        
1961                                                            1959
  
 1955 Redrawn Lower Values.
 
1953 Original Design.                      1955 Re-drawn design.

         In 1955 New Zealand withdrew the 1953 lower values to be replaced with a redrawn design.  This redrawn design was necessary because the denominations on the original Queen Elizabeth low values attracted criticism as being too small for people with poor eyesight to see. At the same time, the opportunity was taken for some colour changes since the colours of the original 3d and 8d were considered too similar. The 1953 set is often referred to as "with stars" while the 1955 set is known as "without stars." I have included this in my captions for both sets.

  
1d (without stars.)                1½d (without stars.)                2d (without stars.)

   
3d (without stars.)               4d (without stars.)               6d (without stars.)               8d (without stars.)

Here is something different, a First Day and Postage Due Cover.
Here is what happened. A First Day Cover, was sent from Australia without enough postage. It had received the Australian 7d stamp plus two cancels. Upon reaching New Zealand it was discovered extra postage was required. This was noted in pencil at the bottom centre. Later a hand stamp was added to the top centre with 2d written in ink, making the postage due official. The extra postage was paid with a 2d NZ stamp which was cancelled with red handwriting.



1958 Queen Elizabeth Provisional 
        We will finish this post with the 1958 Queen Elizabeth II overprints. These were value overprints due to postal rate changes. The stamp on the left is the 2.5d Provisional Overprint on 3d Orange.
        The second stamp is the 2d Provisional Overprint on the 1.5d brown  This overprint had an interesting error.  When the Government Printer overprinted the 1955 1 1/2d Queen Elizabeth II (brown) stamp, a quantity of the 1953 variety (with stars)  was accidentally also overprinted. Both varieties can be seen below to the right.

                        

  

An interesting cover in that it has overprints from QEII no stars and QEII officials.


Some of the images in this post were used with permission from the illustrated catalogue of StampsNZ
You can visit their website and On-line Catalogue at, http://stampsnz.com/