I don't fancy myself as a philat...philatal...ph...stamp collector. I had a relative back when I was 10-11 years old that decided that I liked stamps and got me a bunch of proof books from the post office to start my collection. I'll admit, I went with it for a while and bought a few of those "bag-o-stamps" that HobbyTown used to sell back in the day. I probably had a few thousand stamps from all over the world when suddenly, the idea of putting all of them into binders and sleeves with the aid of tweezers and little green pieces of tissue paper with glue on them just didn't keep me interested. I can't figure out why. Don't ask me where there are now though because I haven't the foggiest. That interest was replaced by cardboard.
At any rate, there were a few of these envelopes in this box. Including the one above, and this one that is a little dog-earred...
This one...
And this one...
I have tried to find information about these but I really can't find anything specific. I do know that Artcraft Engravings was a company that produced various First Day Issues of stamps for a variety of occasions. Knowing that, I suppose these were made to commemorate some kind of trip that the H.M. Queen Elizabeth II was taking, or had taken. One of them is stamped Royal Visit, which I suppose means the Queen must have paid a visit to Bermuda.
If anyone else is more high falootin than I, and would like to elaborate on the origin and species of these items, feel free to comment. But for now, the "Queens Envelopes", as I will call them, are taking their place in the Garage.
There's an envelope like your's on ebay now with a BIN of $9.99. Also, the Queen was in the Caribbean in 1953, specifically in Bermuda in November, http://bernews.com/2010/11/video-from-history-queens-visit-in-1953/.
ReplyDeleteThank you, my friend. That does shed some light on the reason for their existence. This must have been some kind of world tour where they were paying a visit to random countries that used to be part of the British Empire.
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