Final meeting of 2022 is a delight of GB High Values

Our final meeting before the Christmas break was the Chairman’s Evening and featured a superb display by Dr. Max Melrose, who has specialised for many years in GB high-value stamps. For this display, he brought along elements of his collection, focused on George V Seahorses and the George VI Arms Issues.

The display started with the George V Seahorses and covered all three printers, De La Rue, Bradbury Wilkinson, and Waterlow, displaying blocks cancels, shades, and errors across all four values of this stamp. Of particular interest were the multiples of each of these and some of the blocks were some of the largest known to exist. From this, he then went on to display their usage, starting with parcel tags, often used to send packets to Embassies overseas. He then covers their use Telegraphically and also the over cancelled stamps which were obliterated to prevent reuse. We then saw them used fiscally, as well as their use on Registered letters, parcels, and on Parcel tags.

After a brief foray into high values used on Guernsey, we were treated to the Arms issue and Festival High Values used in the Channel Islands, then larger multiples of the early QEII high values as well. After that, the Arms issue proper was covered, with a particular focus on usage, from first-day covers to postally and parcel-used stamps on covers. Again,m there were some extraordinarily large multiples used on parcels, some being the largest known used blocks of these stamps. Finishing with oversize parcels and letter, censored covers, and a final tribute to George VI, the entire audience were amazed at the breadth and depth of this display.

The vote of thanks was given jointly by Graham Macpherson and Nick Rolfe and the entire society would like to thank Max for a wonderful display.