The three 5c stamps for the 50th anniversary of the first England-Australia flight will be issued on 12 November, 1969, the 50th anniversary of the date on which Captain Ross Smith, Lieutenant Keith Smith and Sergeant Mechanics W. H. Shiers and J. M. Bennett took off from Hounslow, England, to commence their record-breaking flight. One design shows their Vickers Vimy, the second shows Captain H. N. Wrigley and Sergeant A. W. Murphy in their B.E.2e taking off from an outback station, during the first Australian transcontinental flight, which they made from Point Cook, Vic., to Darwin to meet the Smiths, and the third design shows Lieutenant Hudson Fysh and P. J. McGinness, who made a ground survey in a Ford truck of the Northern Territory and western Queensland, to mark out possible landing sites.
All three designs are by Mr. Eric Thake, of Melbourne, a well-known artist returning to stamp work after a long break; he designed the Y.M.C.A. Centenary stamp of 1955. The project revived for Mr. Thake a boyhood memory — he saw the Vimy in 1920, when the Smiths made their triumphal arrival in Melbourne. The stamps measure 34.5 mm x 22 mm, printed area, and were printed in photogravure at the Note Printing Branch, Reserve Bank of Australia, Melbourne, on helecon paper.
Details
- Date of Issue: 12 November 1969
- Withdrawn Date:
- Invalidated:
- Designer: Eric Thake, Melbourne
- Printer: Note Issue Department, Reserve Bank of Australia, Melbourne
- Process: Photogravure
- Cylinders:
- Light Blue – Light Red (I) – Olive – Black
- Light Blue – Light Red (II) – Olive – Black
- Paper: Helecon paper
- Watermark: None
- Perf: 13.25 x 13.5 (comb)
- Sheet: Printed in two panes of 50 stamps (R10 x 5) divided by horizontal gutter.
- Quantity: 19,374,000
The light red cylinder was replaced due to the original showing an undesirable mark early in the printing.
Sheet Numbers
