THE LIVING ON STAMPS

by Warwick Paterson

No, this is not a sly double-entendre intended as a hypothetical stamp dealer’s mission statement. No, I’m referring to the well-known subject of the long-standing convention – at least in Western democracies – of never portraying living individuals on stamp issues. The exception to this rule – in countries of the British Commonwealth of Nations at least – is the ruling monarch or other members of the Royal Family.

        Although the latter may seem quaint to citizens of countries other than constitutional monarchies such as in America, the fact that the Americans themselves observe the same convention – and a lot more stringently than some Commonwealth countries – proves the point. In fact they carry it to the exclusion of the Head of State. In a democracy to elevate, politicians, business people and others to the level of immortalisation in stamp issues has traditionally been a step too far allowing for the attendant dangers of its use to perpetuate and encourage particularly politicians who might have a mind to overstay their welcome, as it were. You only needed to look at the stamps of Nazi Germany with their portrayal of Hitler to understand what is meant here. The fact that during World War II, the same stamps were forged by the British subtly to portray the Fuehrer as a death’s head (skull).  All of which shows that the rule is a good one and when you break it someone somewhere could use it against you!

        As an aside, while I was doing some background work for this month’s Notes, I found that there are other conventions and some of them with a lot less obvious practical purpose than allowing the monarch to be portrayed on a stamp. Who knows for instance if there is a law in Britain that makes it an act of treason to place a postage stamp bearing the British monarch upside down? Who knew that Sir Edmund Hillary was the only living (at that time) New Zealander to appear on a $5 note?

        Back to the subject. What got me thinking of this longstanding – and nowadays often broken – convention was the demurral of New Zealand’s greatest recent war hero, Corporal Willie Apiata VC to appear on the stamp issued in his honour as part of “The Victoria Cross – The New Zealand Story”, the recently issued set of twenty-two 60c stamps on April 14 2011. Why you might ask would Corporal Apiata have reservations about being so honoured amongst so many others of his countrymen who have distinguished themselves with acts of bravery in wartime?

        In an official statement New Zealand Defence Force Medals Policy Advisor, Jack Hayes told newspapers that Corporal Apiata did not want his face to be used. He continued “Corporal Apiata VC was involved in early discussions about the stamp issue, and while supportive of honouring those who had been awarded the VC in the past, he felt it was not appropriate for his image to be on a postage stamp at this stage.

        “He like all New Zealanders is indebted to the bravery of those whose exploits are celebrated on the stamps”.

        The New Zealand Herald also offered their understanding that this Special Air Service (SAS) soldier was uncomfortable being recognized with the other VC soldiers who are all dead, whereas he is still living.          

         I’ll return to the likely reasons for Corporal Apiata’s feelings in a minute. Corporal Apiata may not have realised that he was merely confirming and perpetuating something which historically had been ingrained in stamp issuing in Australia, Britain, America – and New Zealand together with other countries. The feelings which he had expressed about being portrayed no doubt mirror the same feelings as officialdom experienced when for a hundred years and through and after two World Wars they may have been faced with the temptation to illustrate historical heroes like Churchill, Montgomery, Roosevelt and Patton.

        I surmise that there may be a couple of further underlying reasons for Willie’s feeling. Firstly, as a serving SAS soldier he has every reason to remain relatively anonymous – at least more anonymous than many of our retired heroes may have been. There may even have been a certain amount of public disquiet at the blaze of publicity he received after the awarding of his VC, given the possibility that it might mark him out as a target for the enemy wherever he may be serving. However valid that reason, there is another possibility and that is the natural traditional reticence of the Maori to be picked out as an individual within a team in which he serves as one of a number of equals. If you question the credibility of the above, after witnessing the All Blacks in action I recall talking to the Headmistress many years ago of a Maori Girls College in Auckland – Queen Victoria School. She spoke strongly in favour of a dedicated Maori college for this very reason. She pointed out that in a school of strongly European tradition (most of the state schools in New Zealand), when a teacher asks for an answer from the class hands go up of whom only one can be selected to give the answer. It was pointed out to me that in the Maori tradition, individuals find a situation like that intimidating and because of the strong collaborative instinct of the traditional Maori way would find it embarrassing to be seen to be attempting to stand out from the crowd in this commonplace situation.

        Willie Apiata has certainly stood out from the crowd – any crowd. As such, he conforms to a long line of Maori wartime heroes. If it was his personal reserve that led to his decision then it nicely rounds out our understanding of the man and his race – as well as their traditional bravery in war.

        Some comparative idea of this convention between Australia, Britain, New Zealand and the USA is quite revealing.

        In the USA, the US Postal Service and the members of the Citizens Stamp Advisory Committee (CSAC) have set down a number of criteria to establish the eligibility of subjects for commemoration on US stamps and stationery. The criteria were formulated first about the time of postal reorganisation in the early 1970’s and have been refined and expanded gradually since then. They run to a full page and do not need to be recited here, but No. 2 on the list is “no living person shall be honoured by portrayal on US postage”. The wording and carefully considered nature of the principles of subject selection does not lead me to believe that the USA will change its rules any time soon.

        In Australia, up to 1997 the same convention applied except of course for members of the Royal Family.

        In Britain, the same restriction on featuring living individuals on stamps is confidently presented by Royal Mail as the only real limitation on the design of stamps Here, however if you look very closely at some of the issues you can discern that in some commemoratives, particularly where an individual was concerned (Sir Francis Chichester) it could be imputed that an individual had been portrayed however minutely. However the rule stands and the fact is that you have to work very hard with your magnifying glass or microscope to prove the point prior to 2005.

        Look harder however and you will find in 2005, England’s Ashes victory (Kevin Pieterson, Michael Vaughan and Andrew Flintoff – all demonstrably alive and kicking). 2007 (The surviving Beatles). 2010 WWII Evacuees (still living). 2011 Film Actors (a veritable army of them) however. In a nod to tradition none of these people is named.  Hmmm …. OK then.

         In New Zealand – this is where Corporal Apiata VC is unknowingly putting the clock back. In 1995, the Nuclear Free issue was based on the face of a living – but unnamed – individual. In the same year in October however, the real break came with the Famous New Zealanders set with individuals such as Kiri Te Kanawa (opera singer), Richard Hadlee (sportsman) and Sir Brian Barratt-Boyes (surgeon). All were living identities. The following year living individuals were portrayed in the highest value stamps of the 100 Years of New Zealand Cinema. In the Olympic Gold stamp of the same year, New Zealand Gold Medal winners were portrayed. And so it has carried on since. If not a free-for-all, then certainly New Zealand stamp issues are now regularly dotted with sports people, characters from films (particularly) and above all the craggy visage of Sir Edmund Hillary (he of the $5 note). This trend has become so marked that you could almost say that the rule is “if you want to be featured on a New Zealand stamp, then star in a New Zealand-made film”. Every time a coconut! Most, mind you are not named  - but a few certainly are.

          If New Zealand Post did have some input into Willie Apiata’s non-appearance on a stamp, then perhaps that was a return to the conventions of the past. Whether you think that “people on stamps” are a good thing or a bad thing, the question which only you as a citizen or as a New Zealand collector can answer.

Philatelic Showcase: Erratum

 Dr Geoff Rickards of Wellington co-author of the article mentioned in the May 2011 Newsletter and published in The New Zealand Stamp Collector has pointed out an error in terminology used in my review of his and Professor Derek Diamond’s article. “Method for distinguishing sideways versus upright watermark paper of engraved stamps on piece”.

        Geoff points out that the two terms “grain” and “mesh” are mutually exclusive and describe completely separate features of stamp-printing papers. In paragraph 5 my quoting from the article “a 5/- Mt Cook design printed on paper with vertical grain (mesh) will be tall and narrow…” is incorrect.  In fact the word “mesh” never appeared in the original article and my inclusion of it was misleading and misrepresented the sense of what the article was saying.

        In fact CP Catalogue users will know from the explanatory notes provided that we acknowledge the difference between ‘grain” and “mesh”. The former describes the tiny fibres present in paper which during the manufacturing process become aligned with the direction of manufacture. The “mesh” describes – the often minute – imprint of that part of the paper manufacturing machinery which carries the paper while it is being transformed from a slurry into a finished product.

        The CP Catalogue by the way uses “mesh” by preference and hardly ever mentions grain. Both features run in the same direction and save from mentioning it in the notes –  our original Editor CP, chose to use mesh as the defining directional feature of all papers.

        On a personal note, while examining the mesh direction of stamps – even modern stamps – I tend to look not only for mesh but also for grain as quite often the two taken together give a complimentary effect – in CP parlance “mesh”. 

        My apologies to Geoff and to Derek, for this lapse in accuracy of reportage.

What’s not in the Catalogue…

Further Follow-up from Geoff Rickards

It was with considerable interest that I read your follow-up comments in CPNL Volume 62 , Number 11 for June 2011 p.3, concerning what is not listed in the CP Catalogue and why.

        Few would take issue with your criterion (a) – i.e. that the material be purchased in the normal course of business over a Post Office counter. But is not your second criterion – that it falls into a known or established category of error that is normally collected and catalogued – necessarily exclusive of new varieties. We know from history that additional varieties come to us with virtually every new or significantly modified printing technique. Witness the essentially unique varieties that the self-adhesive era of stamps have brought us.

        Few, too, would take issue with your conclusion that “it is the collector who makes the rules”. But what is not clear, to me at least, is the requirements whereby a variety might pass from being initially deemed inappropriate to now being acceptable for cataloguing.

        I must admit to a certain vested interest in this latter issue, since I note that the CP Catalogue still does not list the 2002 Tongaporutu Cliffs, Taranaki “extra blue/catch up” booklet stamp. This is despite the following facts. (i) The variety falls into a single category of error, with very dramatic effects (see the appended image). (ii) All 7 booklets known were purchased in July 2003 over the Manners Street Post Office counter during normal working hours. (iii) The booklets have been seen by CP staff. (iv) The variety is described briefly in CPNL 55(6), 2004 p.2, and then more fully in the New Zealand Stamp Collector for December 2004 [Vol. 84(4) pp. 119-22] where it is explained in terms of ‘normal’ printing procedures. (v) The variety is known in other issues, such as Christmas 1975 [Captain Coqk 38(1) p.5]. And finally, to boot, (vi) all booklets are now in the hands of collectors, most having been sold, some on the open market, for not inconsiderable sums of money. To my knowledge, none have come back on the market – suggesting at least a measure of buyer/collector satisfaction. Might I suggest that this all adds up to a good Q.E.D. example where, indeed, the collector should be making the decision.

        As noted above, I append scans of one stamp from the booklet(s) in question, along with a normal stamp for comparison.

Warwick Paterson responds:

The variety which Geoff refers to above – “extra blue/catch up” on 2002 booklets – has been expertly described in The New Zealand Stamp Collector (references as above) essentially as an anomaly in the “wetting” of the non-printing areas of the offset plate used to print the booklets. Geoff Rickard’s article in the NZSC of December 2004 describes the process as one associated with the speed of the printing press, how quickly the cylinder is revolving and how efficient the wetting roller is in preparing the plate for the inking rollers. Normally the non-printing areas would receive water first and therefore be non-receptive to the ink from the inking rollers as the revolution of the plate continued.

        We considered listing this variety soon after it appeared and decided against it. In my opinion – it is very much – as a mechanical anomaly – in the nature of colour shifts and offset “slip prints”, some of which are listed. However, in this case the variety is so anomalous that we had never seen it before in all of the offset-printed issues of New Zealand stamps. The decision was therefore made that the “printer’s waste” aspect of the variety outweighed the “genuine philatelic interest” interest and the variety was omitted.

CALs CORNER - Part 28

by Andrew Dolphin

2010 RIJYO 60c

A 60c self-adhesive CAL was released December 2010 featuring a photo of crayfish. Rijyo Holdings Ltd is a fish exporting company based at Auckland International Airport.

2010 NZ Customs Service Booklet

December 2010 saw the release of the third CAL booklet, following on from Maui Gas and Te Papa. This third booklet is a $6.00 self-adhesive booklet containing 10 x 60c self-adhesive CALs for the New Zealand Customs Service ‘Protecting New Zealand’s Border for 170 Years 1840-2010’. This year 2010, the New Zealand Customs Service is celebrating 170 years of protecting New Zealand’s border. New Zealand welcomes travellers and trade but we also want to protect our community by controlling who and what crosses our borders. The first two 60c CALs feature the wording, ‘Protecting New Zealand’s Border for 170 Years, New Zealand Customs Service’, in English and Maori. The third CAL is most interesting depicting an 1883 Queen Victoria square type 6d blue Beer Duty stamp. The Beer Duty rate in 1883 was levied at 3d per gallon, so this would have been for two gallons. The actual CAL shows the Beer Duty stamp in black, rather than blue as per the issued stamp, so this could either be a black proof or probably more likely a black and white scan of the issued Beer Duty stamp. The remaining seven CALs in the booklet show: present day Customs officers inspecting beer barrels; the first Customs vessel to go by the name of ‘Hawk’ from the 1800’s; the latest Customs patrol craft named ‘Hawk IV’; a NZ Customs officer boarding a ship; a Customs officer at the new SmartGate Passenger Arrivals area; a shipping container at a Customs depot; and a NZ Customs sniffer dog checking mail at the NZ Post International Mail Service Centre, Auckland International Airport.

2011 60c Kendelier Lighting Ltd, Brilliance Auckland

This 60c self-adhesive CAL was released February 2011 as an uprated CAL in an identical design to the original 50c and $1.50 Kendelier CALs.

2011 Sovereign Insurance

 A set of two 60c self-adhesive CALs, issued March 2011 from Sovereign Ltd. Sovereign started in New Zealand in 1989 and covers home and contents and business insurance, investments and home loans. The CALs promote Sovereign’s TotalCareMax Personal Best Doctors insurance policy. The first CAL depicts a view in space of the earth, the moon and  the sun lining up as per ‘2001 A Space Odyssey’ style. The second CAL depicts Auckland City Expo 2040, representing Auckland City in the future, symbolising Sovereign Health into the future. All I can say is that if Auckland looks like this in only 29 years time, I shall be mightily surprised!

2011 Trademark Zone 60c

A 60c self-adhesive CAL released March 2011, featuring the company logo of Trademark Zone. Trademark Zone is an intellectual property law firm based in Wellington. The CAL was used to mail Certificates of Registration sent to their clients.

2011 Tower Insurance 60c  

An uprated 60c self-adhesive CAL for Tower Insurance Corporation featuring the ‘Government Life’ lighthouse logo uprated from their previous 50c CAL. Released March 2011.

(Thanks due to research contributing to this article to Margaret Ingley.)

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