A Philatelist’s Tribute to QEII

I tend to wake up earlier and earlier as I become older, often just to urinate and return to bed until the alarm jars me into the shower at a more reasonable hour. Thus, it was just after three o’clock in the morning that I awoke last Thursday, the 8th of September 2022, and discovered that Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II had died just an hour or so before. I had a sudden shiver as the world seemed fundamentally changed.

I have been enamored with Great Britain and its Royal Family since childhood. I attribute much of that as having come from our neighbors in Texas — the Mullins — moving to Boston in Lincolnshire sometime around my 9th or 10th birthday. The son, John, was my second best friend. They visited us from England several times into my late high school years; it was on one of those visits that the daughter, Jodie, became my first crush. They naturally brought cool souvenirs whenever they returned to the States and I soon began collecting British stamps.

I think the height of my obsession (and collection) of modern Great Britain was in the run-up and aftermath of the Royal Wedding between Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer. By this time, I had a pen-pal who lived on the Channel Island of Jersey (the noted maritime author Noel R.P. Bonsor) who offered to send me Royal Wedding stamps as did John and Jodie. For my birthday that year, my mother purchased a beautiful Stanley Gibbons album designed to hold the stamps and first day covers marking the event as well as a number of sets already inside. This was a prized part of my collection up until I moved to Thailand and had to leave it (and the rest of my stamp holdings) behind.

I don’t recall when I first learned of the Royal Philatelic Collection and of the Queen’s interest in stamps. I was thrilled to learn of yet another Head of State who collected stamps, although the Queen probably wasn’t involved in philately to the degree of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt who actually designed a number of stamps and certainly influenced the direction of the U.S. Post Office Department in the 1930s and early 1940s. I highly recommend Nicholas Courtney’s book The Queen’s Stamps: The Authorised History of the Royal Philatelic Collection (2004).

Later on in my philatelic pursuits, I moved on to the Classics side and purchased my first Penny Blacks on cover (it wasn’t until I had come to Asia that I bought one with the check letters “MJ”, my initials); I once had a nice set of Davo albums to house my Britain collection which was fairly complete up to the mid-1990s. I stopped collecting stamps for a period of time around 1997 and began again in 2006 with the celebrations for King Bhumiphol Adulyadej of Thailand’s 60th year on the throne. That served to renew my interest in other royal-themed stamps, specifically those of Elizabeth II.

Oops. Back up. I did buy a few stamps in 2003 while I was in London. I happened to be there right at the time of Her Majesty’s Coronation anniversary. A friend of mine and I had tickets for both of Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band’s late May shows at the Crystal Palace Stadium. Music was on our minds but somehow I got an invitation from the Royal Geographical Society for a presentation marking the 50th anniversary of the ascent of Mount Everest which would be attended by Sir Edmund Hillary, Sir John Hunt, and members of Sherpa Tenzig Norgay’s family.

On the day of the event, we were informed that there would also be a second presentation that would be attended by the Queen and Prince Philip; we had the option of attending that rather than the “matinee”. Unfortunately, we were too cheap to rent tuxedos and missed our opportunity to stand in a receiving line; I bought stamps instead, several of which I got autographed by the various mountaineering celebrities. We also watched the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace a day or so later.

Sometime in the past few years, I began seeking out covers marking the Queen’s Coronation and the earlier Royal Tours. I pick up the odd first day cover from time to time and it seems to me that many of the designs today are quite beautiful. My favorite of the 2022 issues is the design from Canada.

The images below represent highlights of some ninety years of Elizabeth appearing on stamps and covers. I hope you enjoy seeing some very interesting items portraying the life of Queen Elizabeth II.