The small format definitive issues of King George VI – the ‘low values’ in the range ½d to 1s – are sometimes overlooked as a collecting area. There are only 27 basic stamps, none of which are hard to find mint or used. However, if you want to extend the collection, the usage of these stamps is an area with enormous possibilities. So for the sake of this two-part article, we’ll look at a fundamental topic within that area – the most common ‘solo usages’ you can expect to find for each stamp. This is probably the place to start!
A ‘solo usage’ is exactly what it sounds like – a single stamp used pay the whole of the required rate, whatever that rate may represent. It’s sometimes phrased as ’a stamp paying the rate it was issued for’, but there’s a catch there; often stamps were simply part of a set of values for making up whatever amount was needed, rather
