Page 8 - F L Walton GB QEII Registered Covers

Indicium 8½d Uprated by McCorquodale with 6d Adhesive

The minimum inland registration fee was
increased from 6d to 1s on 1 Jun 1956. Due
to the time required to design and print new
envelopes with a 1s 2½d embossed die, the
post office needed to provide a temporary
solution. They chose to print an uprating of an
extra 6d registration fee - but even this solution
had a long lead time.
The post office decided to return unsold 8½d
envelopes to the printers, McCorquodale &
Co. Ltd., and arranged for them to affix a 6d
adhesive via a machine. These envelopes can
be readily identified as the 6d adhesives have
straight-cut top and bottom margins where the
machine separated the stamps. They cannot
originate from coils as the 6d coils were all vertical,
i.e. had straight sides rather than tops and bottoms.

These envelopes were issued by the Post
Office, although all the standard studies do
not list these items. The examples shown are
deliberately chosen to emphasise the cut edges.
Although mint examples are on the market,
used copies are exhibited with the adhesives
tied to the envelope.

Earliest recorded dates:
Size F 28 Sep 1956
Size G 14 Jul 1956 6 Oct 1956 - Size H - Local use within Leicester
Size H 4 Oct 1956 .

28 Sep 1956 - Size F - Chatham to Rochester 3 Nov 1956 - Size G - Local use within Sheffield