In 1885 De La Rue submitted essays for a cheque book style booklet to the Post Office containing panes of 15 blank labels, fixed in place by their selvedge on the left.
Some 84 years later, in March 1969, the idea to produce a cheque book style booklet containing panes of 15 stamps came up again, but this time the booklet was to have a theme, and with adverts on the covers and interleaves related to the theme. Several themes were considered including cooking, gardening, art and sport.
Essays
A market survey was carried out using nine mock-up booklets based on the suggested themes. There are poor quality photocopies of these booklets, but it is unclear if the originals still exist. The survey found that cooking had the most appeal, and a further seven mock-up booklets were produced by Stuart Rose of the Post Office Illustration Studio. The contents showed simple representations of recipes with photos cut from magazines, and panes of 15 stamps drawn in blue.
One of seven mock-up booklets. Covers were printed in black & white, then hand painted in colour, then glazed.
Various images cut from magazines were used as essays in the mock-up booklets. A cherry pie was stuck inside the front cover of one booklet. Other images were used inside other front covers, and on some interleaves.
An untrimmed pane of “blue heads” handstamped “ILLUSTRATION STUDIO”. An article in Gibbons Stamp Monthly (Sept 1992) says that the set of four untrimmed panes (two pale blue, two dark blue) is unique in private hands.
Back covers were also printed in black & white, then hand painted in colour, then glazed.
The composition of the seven mock-up booklets were similar. A recipe card was stuck inside the front cover, and a stack of interleaves were stapled to the back cover. The first interleaf was a “blue head” stamp pane, the second was a recipe interleaf, the third another stamp pane, and the remaining four to six pages were blank. The following booklet has five blank pages:
Click the images to enlarge.
A pane of dummy stamps made from coloured paper which was perforated by Harrison and sent to the advertising contractor Stan Hills who made them up into booklets for presentation to prospective clients. 1d, 4d, and 5d stamps were represented by yellow, orange, and blue labels.
There are at least four “sets” of these coloured paper panes known. Two sets with 15 stamps have no manuscript but do have staple holes suggesting they were made up into booklets. A set with 12 stamps has manuscript “1d or ½np” (yellow), “4d or 2np” (orange), and “5d or 2½np” (blue). A second set with 12 stamps has “ADVERTISEMENT TEXT” typewritten in the left panel, 12 stamps suggesting these were for the £1 Wedgwood booklet.
Proofs
Proof booklets were produced, with recipes and illustrations taken from The Dairy Book of Home Cookery by Sonia Allison, published by the Milk Marketing Board in 1968. The 4d and 5d panes were made by attaching blocks of counter sheet stamps to printed stubs, and the se-tenant pane made with either the space for the stamps left blank or with counter sheet stamps gummed onto the blank paper.
A pane from a proof booklet with counter sheet stamps attached to a printed stub with a strip of transparent gummed tape (reverse shown).
A pane from a proof booklet with counter sheet stamps gummed onto a full width interleaf. Note the different order from the issued booklet.
Posters
Stamps for Cooks was put on sale on 1 Dec 1969 and became the first of the “prestige” or sponsored booklets.
Design: Philip Sharland Associates
Printer: Westerham Press
£1 Booklet Series 11: ZP1
Date: Dec 1969
Editions: (1)
Printer: Harrison
Watermark: none
Makeup: FC, UB20, int, UB16, int, UB17, int, UB2, int, BC
Initially booklets were bound with staples, but this proved to be too slow, and the large majority were stitched. An inch-wide strip of black passe-partout was wrapped around the spine in order to extend the booklet’s usefulness as a recipe book.
ZP1: stapled (10,808 issued)
ZP1s: stapled, Specimen 14mm (40 issued)
ZP1a: stitched (374,894 issued)
ZP1as: stitched, CDS “8 JUN 71” (8 issued)
ZP1at: stitched, Specimen 72mm (6+ issued)
Pane with 14mm handstamp from booklet ZP1s, for use by the advertising contractor.
Pane date stamped “8 JUN 71” from booklet ZP1as, for use by the advertising contractor when the next prestige booklet was being planned (1972 £1 Wedgwood).
Pane with 72mm handstamp from booklet ZP1at, for use by the advertising contractor when the next prestige booklet was being planned (1972 £1 Wedgwood).
An Advertisers Voucher Copy, stitched but without the black binding and without stamps.
There was no official Post Office first day cover, but the Milk Marketing Board produced an illustrated cover in connection with their exhibition at Thames Ditton.
Booklet Panes
Booklet panes of 15 were printed in photogravure on unwatermarked chalk-surfaced paper. All have perforation Type I, PVA gum, and Machin Head B.
All panes also exist on uncoated paper, but not in the same booklet. Similarly, all panes exist without phosphor, but not in the same booklet.
Phosphor bands: two per stamp on inner columns, side band on outer columns (UB2).
Phosphor bands: centre band (UB16, UB17).
Phosphor bands: two per stamp (UB20).
UB2: two bands, side band on 4d; PVA; Head B; Booklets ZP1; Perfs I; Cyls* F7 (1d), N8 (4d), R5 (5d)
Variety UB2d, UB2ae: Mole on cheek (R1/2)
Variety UB2e, UB2af: White spot in necklace
UB16: centre band; PVA; Head B; Booklets ZP1; Perfs I; Cyls* N9
Variety UB16b, UB16ad: Broken necklace (R1/1)
Variety UB16c, UB16ae: Tail on “4” (R1/4)
UB17: centre band; PVA; Head B; Booklets ZP1; Perfs I; Cyls* N9
Variety UB17b, UB17ad: Broken necklace (R1/1)
Variety UB17c, UB17ae: Spot over eye (R2/2)
UB20: two bands; PVA; Head B; Booklets ZP1; Perfs I; Cyls* R6
Variety UB20c, UB20af: White flaw below collar (R1/2)
Variety UB20d, UB20ag: Flaw on shoulder (R1/2)
* cylinder numbers do not appear in the finished booklets.
Adverts & Interleaves
Recipes 1, 4, and 10 were not illustrated.
Recipe 8 “Ham Club Sandwich” missed Ham from the ingredients.
Recipe 9 was illustrated on the front cover.
Recipe 12 was illustrated on the back cover.
Click the images to enlarge.