One of the lasting legacy that the Museum assisted with was the production of three special issues of Stamps to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II's Golden Jubilee, these being produced by the Philatelic Bureau. The Museum provided images from its own collection and also helped by scanning images lent from private collections and which were to be used for the Stamps.
The first set of 5 Stamps covered past ‘Official Visits’. All are priced at 60 cents and cover the Princess Royal’s visit in 1960, Queen Elizabeth II’s visit in 1966 (both images supplied from the Museum collection), Princess Alexandra’s visit in 1988, Prince Philip’s visit in 1993 (supplied by the Museum) and Prince Andrew’s visit in 2000.
The second set of 6 Stamps covered the 6 ‘Jubilee Themes’ and are all priced at 25 cents. ‘Our History’ was represented by a view of the crossing place trail on Middle Caicos, ‘Our Heritage’ shows Wades Green on North Caicos (image supplied by Museum), ‘Our Environment’ shows the reef, ‘Our Faith’ is represented by St Thomas’ Church (image supplied by Museum), ‘Our Culture’ is represented by a ripsaw band and ‘Our Talent’ shows a basket maker.
The third set covers ‘Significant Occurrences in a Decade’, with one stamp representing an important event for each of the decades of Queen Elizabeth’s reign. For 1952-1962 an image showing a salt raker was selected, for 1962 to 1972 the arrival of the Mercury capsule was selected (both of these images came from the Ted Philiponna collection), for 1972 to 1982 the Legislative Chamber was chosen to represent the introduction of ministerial government (photograph taken by the Museum) and for 1982-1992 a map of the Turks and Caicos Islands was chosen to represent the Quincentennial of Columbus’ landfall. However, the most important of this series is for 1992-2002 as it shows the Turks and Caicos National Museum, and represents the great work the Museum has done in protecting, promoting and developing the country’s History during its first decade.
First day covers and souvenir stamp sheets are available from the Philatelic Bureau on Grand Turk and for a limited time from the Museum. For more details on how to purchase Stamps please contact us direct or the Philatelic Bureau on Grand Turk.
Contents of this story:
Turks and Caicos National Museum
Nigel Sadler
See Fall 2002 issue of Astrolabe |
