Great Britain Philatelic Society

Does any member have images of the confirmed various states of the HLP flaw 6d Olympic Games issue that they would be prepared to allow me to publish - many thanks Mike

Hi Mike,

I faced this problem back in 2020 when doing an article on these stamps for the Philatelic Bulletin (Vol 57/10 June 2020, see the downloads page). I contacted Stephen Weir (who had displayed KGV/KGVI commeomoratives to the GBPS) who commented:

"The HLP variety exists as follows - (1) margin showing HLP on R20/4-6 (2) 1st retouch attempt - P almost removed (3) 2nd retouch attempt - H & P removed, and finally (4) all 3 removed but with the retouch visible. (2) and (3) are exceedingly rare and rarely come on the market. I regret that I currently don't have these 2 intermediate retouches, but would love to have them !!!"

I'm sure Stephen would be happy to supply the same images, but I'm guessing that you're looking specifically for (2) and (3)? If so, looks like that might be tricky! Possibly SG would have their original reference images, although they would probably be black and white photographs, not scans?

Hi - thanks for the reply I copied the attached from some where but I get the feeling it is not correct in its states. Certainly the second, third and fourth all appear to be of the same state.