I Spent The Day Playing Stamps,

and started where I left off,

and finished another album,

I opened another envelope of stamps, this one starting with the King George VI coronation, I should mention that many of the stamps that I collect are not postage stamps, they are issues to commemorate various events like this,

 I was lucky to be able to buy this set,

of sheets explaining what each stamp was,

I was also fortunate in buying complete sheets,

of each colour,

the top and bottom mini sheets may look the same, but they are from 2 different printing plates, a small difference but they are different printing plates, I have no idea why,

if you look carefully at the bottom of each stamp the words Coronation Chair on the bottom stamp and Westminster Abbey on the upper one are in 2 different type sizes, 

commemorative stamps were a big thing back then,

I was not very fortunate with this issue,

just the one sheet and that was it,

on the other hand I had a result with the 1951 Festival of Britain,

as for each colour I had a page of perforated and unperforated sheets, and if you missed the festival,

here it is, a colour video,

this issue of stamps was to raise money for the Greater London Fund for the Blind,

there was a cover plus the stamps,

some more souvenir stamps from the festival,

although not printed in the UK these were from the 1939 Royal visit in Canada,

stamps were also used by many companies as advertising, like these from the Hyde Park Hotel,

also telephone stamps, these were used to prepay for telephone calls,

although not British I started to collect stamps from the 1954 Antarctic issue, 

I managed to track down three full sheets, I still have one colour to go,

so that is another album completed,

on to my evening read and sherry,

for my starter smoked salmon and salmon canapes,

'Cheers!',

for my main course a Chinese chicken curry and duck in plum sauce with two types of rice,

I finished with a sherry trifle,

just before 01.00 AM on Sunday morning Diana called, her shift was finished for the day, so off to the bus stop, as it happened Diana had left it a bit late to call me, so we meet up in the park, next home, a coffee and a chat, and we were off to bed.