Named after the photograph taken by photographer Dorothy Wilding in February 1952 (see page 21); the ‘Wilding’ stamps were designed by Edmund Dulac, Enid Marx, Mary Adshead, Michael Farrar-Bell and George Knipe. Praised at the time for their departure from what had gone before, the definitives were later considered to be cluttered, prompting the introduction of the simple, classic Machin design. But these 1950s stamps have their own charm, not least as the Queen’s portrait shows how she actually looked at the time.
The eighteen basic stamps were: ½d orange-red, 1d ultramarine, 1½d green, 2d red-brown, 2½d carmine-red, 3d deep lilac, 4d ultramarine, 4½d chestnut (first issued, much later than the others, in 1959 so something of an oddity), 5d brown, 6d reddish brown, 7d bright green, 8d magenta, 9d…
