1948, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, Royal Silver Wedding 2½d U K

1948, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, Royal Silver Wedding 

This is one of the rare stamps of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, Royal Silver Wedding 

1. Motive: King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, Royal Silver Wedding 
2. Year: 1948
3. Text: 2 1/2 D- POSTAGE REVENUE-1923-1948
4. Watermark:
5. Perforation: 15 X 14
6. Condition: Ø = used/cancelled
7. Keywords: 1948, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, Royal Silver Wedding 2½d  U K
8. StampScout: ---
9. MichN
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The unexpected abdication of Edward VIII created an urgent need to prepare designs for stamps to be ready for the coronation of the new King and Queen. Usually this process would take a great many months - in this case the Post Office had just over 4 months.

The initial idea was to prepare four low value definitives for the most highly used denominations and one or two higher value (9d, 10d or 1s) special coronation stamps.

The decision for the coronation commemorative to show both the King and Queen was not reached until March 1937with Royal approval.

Photographs of the King were available from a series taken by Bertram Park in preparation for the new coinage, and a picture of the Queen was made available from the Royal Mint. However these photographs, and especially those of the Queen were rejected as they would not copy well in photogravure. A decision was therefore made to take new photographs of the King and Queen.

This delay led to a decision in March that there would only be sufficient time to produce enough quantities of just one value for the special stamps. It was agreed that if the value of 1½d were issued, then this would decrease the printing demand being placed on Harrison and Sons for this 'rush job'. The hope was that the Coronation stamp would be available on 10 May along with the three new definitives.

By mid March, Eric Gill had prepared two designs using the unaccepted photographs of the King and Queen. He redesigned the stamp with a lower value and new photographs taken by Dorothy Wilding.

Edmund Dulac, Gill's co-designer on the definitive stamps, was asked to produce an alternative design. He produced drawings of the King and Queen based on the Wilding photographs.