Bahamas Philately: 1980 Definitive Series – 10c Ceremonial Mace

A ceremonial mace is a highly ornamented staff of metal or wood, carried before a sovereign or other high officials in civic ceremonies by a mace-bearer, intended to represent the official’s authority

On 27 April 1965, a day known in the Bahamas as “Black Tuesday”, Lynden Pindling, then Opposition Leader, threw the 165-year-old Speaker’s Mace out of a House of Assembly window to protest against the unfair gerrymandering of constituency boundaries by the then ruling United Bahamian Party (UBP) government. The Speaker tried to restore order but he was reminded by Labour leader Randol Fawkes that the business of the House could not legally continue without the mace. The badly damaged mace was recovered by the police and returned to the House.

The House of Assembly reconvened with a temporary wooden mace loaned by Canada; this was the same temporary mace used by the House of Commons of Canada after it lost its own mace to a fire in 1916.

In November 1975, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom donated a new mace to the House of Assembly and the temporary mace was returned to Canada freshly gilded.

Details

Designer: John Waddington of Kirkstall Ltd, Leeds, England
Printer: Format International Security Printers Ltd
Process: Lithography
Paper:
Watermark: Crown CA (Diagonal)*
Perf: 14.5 (comb)
Cylinders: Printed in four panes separated by gutter between the four panes, and guillotined into two horizontal panes.
- 1A (Cyan) 1A (Yellow) 1A (Magenta) 1A (Black) 1A (Brown) : 1B (Cyan) 1B (Yellow) 1B (Magenta) 1B (Black) 1B (Brown) [upper left : upper right]
- 1C (Cyan) 1C (Yellow) 1C (Magenta) 1C (Black) 1C (Brown) : 1D (Cyan) 1D (Yellow) 1D (Magenta) 1D (Black) 1D (Brown) [lower left : lower right]
Sheet: R10 x 5 in two panes separated by a gutter (100 stamps)
Quantity:

Known with watermark inverted.

There appears to be two printings of this first release. The original print uses yellowish-brown and the later print is brown. Additional, the 1C (Cyan) plate appears with a thin 1C and a thick 1C in the later print. Both elements means the stamp’s second print has deeper looking colours when compared with the first print.