ROYAL HEADS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 136, 10 June 1937, Page 11

ROYAL HEADS

CORONATION STAMPS

RELATIVE POSITION

NO HARD AND.FAST RULE

. Statements have been made, but without the slightest foundation'of fact; thatthe heads of the King and Queen cm the New Zealand. Coronation stamps are the wrong way about—that, looking at the stamps, the King should be on the left of 'the Queen.. Now that the British Coronation stamp has arrived, with the two heads the opposite way' round to the way they are placed on the New Zealand stamps, support at.first sight seems, to be lent to the theory, that the New : Zealand stamps are wrong. ' As a matter' of fact, they are not wrong, since, there is no.right or wrong about the matter and no hard and fast rule.

If the heads on the New- Zealand stamps were-the .wrong way round* then a very grievous, and similar,.error has been committed by the authorities at Home. -They were responsible for the issue of-the three special Coronation stamps for each' tjf the 45 Crown Colonies, and on : those stamps the heads of the King and- Queen are arranged as-they are on the New Zealand stamps. The same authorities saw fit to change the heads round on the one and only British Coronation stamp, which obviously points to the fact that they considered it of no importance how the heads were arranged. They gave their blessing, so.to speak, to both arrangements.

If the New Zealand stamps had been wrong, attention- would have been called to the fact - when- the ■ designs were submitted to the authorities at Home for .Royal. approval. On the New Zealand Silver Jubilee stamps of two years ago, Queen Mary's head was on the left .of .King George. V's, just as Queen Elizabeth is on the left of King George VI on the Coronation stamps. It was never suggested then that the heads were wrongly placed.

No other Silver Jubilee stamps, besides the New Zealand ones had the two heads on them, so comparisons in that respect are impossible. And never before until the present Coronation has Great Britain ever issued a doubleheaded stamp, so there' is no precedent .there to act as a guide. But double-headed stamps have been issued previously by Canada and Newfoundland, and in every instance, with one exception, has the Queen been on the left of the King as is the case in the New Zealand Coronation stamps.

To argue that the New Zealand stamps are wrong is therefore senseless. Were they so, they.would never have seen the light of day in their present form, for 'extreme care is laken: in such matters when new stamps are issued. The rumour that they are to be withdrawn and replaced by an issue in which the King and Queen have changed places is baseless, and was probably started by someone with visions of reaping a harvest by . acquiring large stocks of the "wrong", stamps. These "wrong" stamps, however, are but a creation of the imagination, and the New Zealand Coronation stamps in their present form will continue to. be sold for many weeks yet. .. ■