Silver Jubilee

Silver Jubilee


96,044,000	2,879,920	499,920
6 plates	1 Plate	Half plate
Carmine Red Scarlet Pl 1..4 only Brownish Red Pl 1..4 only Rough Paper	Dull Blue, Bright Blue	Violet

2nd May 1935 Silver Jubilee of King George the fifth's reign.

Designed and Engraved by F.D. Manley.

Watermarked, chalk surfaced paper, perforated 11½.

copper electros

The design shows a somewhat uncomfortable king mounted on 'Anzac', a gift from admiring subjects in Australia. The stallion appears to be a spirited brute with a mule's face and temperament. The king is not sitting on this animal, he is standing in the stirrups ready to jump.

*note the small print run of the 2/- value.

A very high instance of varieties plague the 2d. It was originally assumed this issue saw the first use of copper electros rather than a direct steel master plate. Copper electros were used from the beginning of rotary recess. The only other current explanation is the first use of nickel coatings.

Different inks were used on the initial printings of both the 2d and 3d until a suitable one was found. Distinctly different shades of bright scarlet and brownish red distinguish these first printings of the 2d (1st four plates), and a bright blue in the 3d.

It is believed that plate 6 of the 2d is Delta Metal.

Plate Layout

From the printers perspective it is immaterial whether the stamp image is portrait or landscape. Since this issue's layout is a direct copy of the original Victorian Centenary it is described as a landscape layout with portrait image. The only concession by the printer to the orientation is in the position of the imprints (marked in red). Ordinarily, they would appear horizontally below the interpane gutters.

The plate numbers appeared in each corner of the sheet. Note that unlike similar flat-plate plate numbers, which ordinarily appeared directly above the first stamp, these are placed in the sheet corners, not the stamp.

As normal, the printsheet for the 2d and 3d was 320-on guillotined into four post office sheets. Each po sheet consisted of the quite standard two panes, each 10 rows of 4, with narrow interpane gutter. However, being a portrait image, the sheet is numbered (confusingly) in reverse, 4 rows of 10.

The 2/- printing was a miserable half million stamps. It was produced on a 160-on plate. An uneconomic proposition but done regardless. It does however give the philatelic student a nice example of how the curved plate was oriented to the rotary press..

For a few short years intentionally visible plate numbers reappeared on rotary recess issues, probably in response to philatelic demand. Their requirement was probably unnecessary to begin with and certainly frivolous for the higher denominations that only ever had one plate. It was not as if there were any intention of producing more than a limited print run. Plate numbers first appeared on the Anzac issue of a few months prior and continued with this commemorative.

By examining the printsheet layout above, it should be obvious that the corner margins of any given post office sheet can appear with, or without plate numbers.

In this issue, a total of 6 plates were made for the 2d and (as usual) one each for the other denominations.

As noted, the 2/- was printed from a 160-on plate and can only have numbers in the upper left and right corners of post office sheets.

The standard Ash imprint was placed under the middle stamps of the bottom pane of each post office sheet.

3110gvBLOCK.jpg (58128 bytes) A nice example of a top strip from the lower panel of a PO sheet.