David Ripley of Beltsville, Maryland, writes in response to Neil Mumford’s item in Vol 43 No2 (June 2024) to say that he does not own an example of the 1d Arms Banknote posted on 7 April but has a pair of the ½d and a single of the 1d posted on 9 April, but neither cover is endorsed First Day. However, he does have a pair of the ½d posted on 26 March. He was “reliably” informed that no official first day existed for either stamp, but that the blue paper stamps were only to be issued when stocks of other issues had run out. The Michel Catalogue records first days for the ½d as being 11 March, and the 1d 7 April.
Ed Fraser of Nokomis, Florida, writes in reply to Jerry Tomes Letter to the Editor, also in the previous journal, that information about why the Channel Islands were omitted from the later version of the leaflet was first “suggested” in the classic work by E. Gilbert in his 1978 articles. See the article in Stamp Collector of December 1978, concerning Box 506.
There Gilbert shows the example of a cover and letter from Thomas Cook that indicates why some places were delisted. German-occupied France was listed for a time, but Thomas Cook apparently found that it could never confirm that any covers got through. This was the impetus for the TC&S Box 1036 Stockholm “Experiment” tried late in the war.
Thank you both for your replies, Editor.
