Later Definitive Stamps
With the accession of George VI in 1937 until the early 1970s, Australian definitives featured the monarch, Australian fauna and Australian flora. However, particularly in the late 1950s, the depiction of the monarch - now Elizabeth II - on Australian definitives became confined to the base domestic letter rate and the preceding minor values. With the introduction of decimal currency on 14 February 1966, 24 new definitives were issued – the monarch was featured on the minor values (1c to 3c) and on the base domestic letter rate (4c) and the remainder featured Australian birds, Australian marine life, and early Australian maritime explorers. A feature of this issue was that where there was a direct conversion of value, the design was changed to reflect the new decimal currency value – for example, the 2/6d (two shilling and sixpence) Scarlet Robin definitive (issued 21 April 1965) become the new 25c decimal currency value; likewise the £2 (two pounds) Phillip Parker King definitive (issued 26 August 1964) became the new $4 decimal currency value.
The last base domestic letter rate definitive stamp featuring the monarch appeared on 1 October 1971. Since then, the designs of all Australian definitive values have focused on fauna, flora, reptiles, butterflies, marine life, gemstones, paintings, handicrafts, visual arts, community and the like. From 1980, a stamp has been issued annually to commemorate the monarch's birthday.
Read more about this topic: Postage Stamps And Postal History Of Australia
Famous quotes containing the words definitive and/or stamps:
“... But all the feelings that evoke in us the joy or the misfortune of a real person are only produced in us through the intermediary of an image of that joy or that misfortune; the ingeniousness of the first novelist was in understanding that, in the apparatus of our emotions, since the image is the only essential element, the simplification which consists of purely and simply suppressing the factual characters is a definitive improvement.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“Even in harmonious families there is this double life: the group life, which is the one we can observe in our neighbour’s household, and, underneath, another—secret and passionate and intense—which is the real life that stamps the faces and gives character to the voices of our friends. Always in his mind each member of these social units is escaping, running away, trying to break the net which circumstances and his own affections have woven about him.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)