The Definitive Issue
The profile portrait chosen was taken by Hugh Cecil's studio. The photo was, in its entirety, a nude, one of many from a collection put together as a birthday gift for The Duchess of Windsor. The design was suggested by H.J. Brown, an 18 year old man, sent in February 1936 to the postal authorities. It inspired Harrison and Sons printers. The only graphic decorations on the stamp were the crown, the denomination in the upper corners, and the word "POSTAGE" at the bottom. Brown's project, the simplest of all submissions, placed the words "POSTAGE" and "REVENUE" on the lateral sides. The Post Office wrote to Mr Brown telling him that his proposed design could not be used. After the stamp came out, clearly using Brown's design, Brown's father issued a statement regretting the Post Office's deceit.
Watermarked with a crown and "E8R", the stamps were issued on 1 September 1936 for the halfpenny green, the threehalfpence brown and the twopence halfpenny blue, and on 14 September for the one penny red.
Read more about this topic: Edward VIII Postage Stamps
Famous quotes containing the words definitive and/or issue:
“... 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)
“Modern equalitarian societies ... whether democratic or authoritarian in their political forms, always base themselves on the claim that they are making life happier.... Happiness thus becomes the chief political issue—in a sense, the only political issue—and for that reason it can never be treated as an issue at all.”
—Robert Warshow (1917–1955)