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Marconi Stamps (first-day cover)

Technical Information

Catalogue No: C1397
Category: General Purpose
Object Type: Stationery/Office Items
Object Name: Marconi Stamps (first-day cover)
Part No: None
Serial No: None
Manufacturer: Royal Mail
Division: Not Applicable
Platform(s):
Year of Manufacture: 1995
Dimensions: Width (mm): 217
Height (mm): 114
Depth (mm): 1
Weight (g): 14
Location: Cupboard CL (Display 7) [Main Store]
Inscription(s):

Royal Mail First Day Cover
Communications
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Sir Rowland Hill 1795-1879
Marconi First Wireless Message 1895
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First Day of Issue
London EC
5 Sept 1995

Notes:

First-day cover postage stamps commemorating Marconi and the Marconi Company. A card within the envelope explains in more detail:

SIR ROWLAND HILL (1795-1879)
GUGLIELMO MARCONI (1874-1937)

This year [1995] marks the two-hundredth anniversary of Sir Rowland Hill's birth and the centenary of Guglielmo Marconi's first effective radio transmissions. It is appropriate that Royal Mail stamps should honour the significant contributions both men made to modern communications, particularly since The Post Office played a pivotal role in the legacies they left the world. Hill's far-reaching postal reforms introduced uniform penny postage and the first postage stamp, while The Post Office was the first organization in the world to champion Marconi's pioneering work in the development of radio. This led to the establishment of wireless communications at sea and Marconi sending the first transatlantic signals in 1901.

Number of stamps: four. Date of issue: 5 September 1995. Design: The Four Hundred, engraved by Czeslaw Slania. Printer: Harrison & Sons Limited, High Wycombe, HP 13 5EZ, UK. Process: intaglio and offset lithography. Stamp designs @ Royai Mail 1995. Format: vertical. Size: 35mm x 37mm. Perforations: 14x14 'A . Number per sheet 100. Paper: phosphor-coated, except for the lowest value which has one phosphor bar. Gum: PVA Dextrin. Cover design: The Foundry. Text: Mike Barden. Illustration: Debbie Cook.

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