Great Britain Philatelic Society

Can anyone one help me get my records straight and tell me the issue dates for the Bradbury high Values on non watermarked paper. All the sources seem to come up with different dates.

Larry

From where have you found any conflicting information Larry ?

If you enter into the GBPS' search engine at the top of the page "Wilding castles" and Input frame 8 you will find all the correct relevant information that you need for the Bradbury Wilkinson no watermark castles.
WM

Those dates certainly tally with the SG, Michel and Stoneham ones but The Woodstock and Booth catalogues have slightly diverging dates I see.

The problem with the issue dates of the Wilding Castles is that the GPO did not regard printings on unwatermarked paper as new issues.

The GPO considered it had enough stocks of printings on watermarked paper to last until March 1968 when the Machin high values were due for release. The printing of 10,625 sheets of the £1 stamp on chalky paper was enough for that value, the 2s6d stamp on chalky paper covered that value and there were sufficient stocks of the 5s and 10s stamps.
Unfortunately for the GPO two events occurred.

The £1 on chalky paper was rejected. The chalky paper stock was destroyed and only 30 remain through theft at Bradbury Wilkinson. Stocks were low and there was a rush to have sufficient stocks of the £1 value. There was no watermarked paper left, so a printing was made on unwatermarked paper. Harrisons were instructed not to coat the paper. The low stock of the £1 value was why it was issued well before the other values.

Then there were difficulties with the Machin high values and the issue date was postponed until September 1968, and further postponed until March 1969. This meant the remaining values had to be printed on unwatermarked paper.

Since the GPO was more interested in the post offices having sufficient stock, the unwatermarked printings were issued as required.

The dates the Specialised are the dates the unwatermarked printings were released by the Philatelic Bureau. These dates have been taken as the most accurate.

Thanks for clearing up the issue dates I was confused with different dates from all sources . Thanks again.