Monday, February 6, 2012

Edward Wilson of the Antarctic

Royal Mail issued a sheet recently as part of the "House of Windsor" set and in the sheet was a first class stamp showing Robert F Scott and his ill-fated Antarctic expedition team. Of all the special first-day postmarks available at the time of the stamp issue, two of them were related to Scott and one to Edward Wilson. Edward Wilson, renowned English polar explorer, was born in Cheltenham on 23 July 1872. He was part of Robert Scott's expedition to the South Pole as Chief of Scientific Staff and perished along with Scott and Henry Bowers in late March of 1912.


I had a partial sheet of 42p stamps available so I mailed off some covers to the UK and this was one of them. When going after a special postmark, your choice of stamp means everything. This stamp has nothing to do with the subject matter of the postmark but I can overlook. However the stamp's black and white image makes it hard to clearly make out the postmark. I should have arranged the stamps better and instructed the postmark center to apply the cancel to the bottom corner of the stamp to keep as much of the stamp and postmark unobstructed as possible. Perhaps I will be better prepared next time.

No comments: