1909 Edward VII Definitives.

 Definitive Tour.

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          King Edward VII (b.9th November 1841 – d.6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom, the British Dominions and Emperor of India from the 22nd of January 1901 until his death on the 6th of May 1910. Before finally becoming King, Edward held the title of Prince of Wales, and has the dubious distinction of being heir apparent to the throne longer than anyone else in British history. He was caught in a similar situation to the current Prince of Wales, having a mother as queen, lasting well into her 80s. Like Prince Charles will be today. Edward was an older man himself before he became King.
           Because the 1898 Pictorials had only just been issued when he ascended to the throne, New Zealand stamps bearing the King's head were not issued until November 1909, and even then they were not distributed widely until stocks of the pictorials had been exhausted. In the end the stamps bearing his image were only on sale for six months before he died. Once issued, most values remained on sale until 1915, and the five penny and eight penny stamps were still in use in 1920, ten years after King Edward's death. The one penny dominion was still in use until 1926.

           The Imperial Conference of 1907 granted the self-governing colonies of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Newfoundland the status of Dominion. This recognized these territories as autonomous communities within the British Empire, and established them as equals to the United Kingdom, making them essentially independent members of the Commonwealth of Nations. In many ways, this issue was a celebration of New Zealand's new-found independence and "Dominion of New Zealand' appears proudly at the top of each stamp.

         

½d - Green.                                           1d - Dominion.

See our post 1909 Universal - 1909 Dominion. 

                      

      2d - Mauve.                                      3d - Brown.                                       5d - Dark Brown.

 

      4d - Orange.                              4d - Yellow 1912.

  

6d - Red.                                      8d - Blue.                                   1/- Orange.

Edward VII Booklet Stamps.

Some values were also sold in sheets held in small booklets. Each pane consisted of five stamps plus a booklet star that paid for the extra cost of printing. Below is a used pair showing a stamp and a booklet star. Further down can be seen the layout of a mint complete pane.

Stamp and Booklet Star.

 Full booklet pane including the star.

 A ½d booklet block of four stamps cancelled using the very rare black Railway Loose Letter cancel.

 First Day Covers.

A rare 1909 Edwards First Day Cover with all values except the 4d yellow, which was issued in 1912. It is a registered cover to the famous Philatelist W Stagg, post marked Christchurch 8/11/1909. Back then, First Day Covers were hardly ever collected unless especially arranged like this one was.  

An Edward VII pair on an advertising cover on the first day of issue. Notice the very unusual cancel across the length of the cover giving the place, time, date & year.

Uses of the Edward VII Definitives.

The items above and below both show use of 1909 Edward VII stamps for postal purposes. Yes they are both registered letters but the stamps were also used in ordinary mail as well.

 On these two items the 1909 Edward VII stamps have been used to show the payment of stamp duty. The above item from 1911 is two Private Cheques issued by Tauwhareparae and Hauturu sheep stations. The top cheque was for nine pounds, two shillings & 5 pence plus stamp duty of 1 penny. 
The item below 1918 Dalgety and Company Document, showing the payment of Insurance, and transaction Stamp Duty of nine pence.

The next three items are Mail Tags used on large items or groups of mail items going to the same address.

Edward VII Mail Tag Kaikoura 27-12-1911.

 

Mail Tag Christchurch 18-4-1914.

This last tag has had its postal cancels partly removed during washing making them almost impossible to read. It appears that the cancel might be the same Christchurch oval cancel used on the tag above.

The final item is an up rated Newspaper Wrapper. The original postage of ½d is printed on the cover using an oval design but since it wasn't enough to cover the postage to South Africa a 1909 Edward VII ½d stamp was added to uprate the cover.  

The Officials.

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



              

 ½d - Green.                                               1d - Dominion.

                          

3d - Brown.                                                       6d - Red.

                

8d - Blue.                                                1/- Orange.

 Official stamps used on an Official cover.

Errors on the "Official" overprint.

Block of ½d - Green Official showing various errors of the overprint concerning the dot at the end of the word Official.

Included are; Dot omitted; Dot joined to L; Dot partial omitted.



Overprint shift, moved to far left.