KGVI - Stanley Gibbons King George VI Commonwealth 2009

Published by Stanley Gibbons. 207pp. Colour. English

Inc Great Britain and Channel Islands, printing, perforation and watermark errors and varieties, major colour errors, specimens, stamps on cover, omnibus issues, postage dues, officials, booklets, English/French/German/Spanish/Italian glossary

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Philatelic Exporter review, courtesy of David Rennie (April 2010):

This volume was one of the titles reviewed by me during the first few months after I started reviewing books for the Exporter (see Exporter April 2001) and indeed one of the first catalogues I owned as a schoolboy collector back in the 1950s.

The latest edition has been reformatted into the larger "Concise" size, and is now in full colour on non-glare stock.; Prices are taken from the latest "Red Book," and compared with the 2001 prices throw up some startling price increases during the period.; It is worth noting that there are some sixty-five varieties now listed and illustrated, which were not in the 2001 edition.; Many of the illustrations of these show enlarged sections of the relevant stamps, and the use of arrows greatly assists the collector.

SG seems to have rationalized the policy for carrying forward GV period stamps.; For example the two shilling and three shilling Arms issues of Bahamas, and the Bermuda halfpenny, sixpence, and one shilling and sixpence values which continued in use well into the reign of GVI and were never replaced by GVI portrait designs are listed before the Coronation issue in those countries.; The full sets currently in use at the beginning of the reign of the independent States (Indian and Malaya), and other territories such as Maldives, Palestine, Sudan etc. are fully listed, and the GVI collector then has all the information needed to decide what to collect.

Similarly the New Zealand 1936-1942 and South Africa 1930-45 unhyphenated and 1933-48 hyphenated sets are fully listed, however the Newfoundland 1932-38 pictorials seem to be the exception, with the new 48c issued in 1938 SG228c being notable for its absence.

This year marks the 50^th Anniversary of the King George the Sixth CollectorsSociety and tribute is paid to Richard Lockyer, OBE, immediate Past President, who has contributed information about many of the new varieties in this volume.; A special closed meeting of that Society took place at the RPSL on February 27^th, when some six-hundred pages of material from the Royal Philatelic Collection were on display.

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