This one has retained a slightly metallic golden sheen and has a very well made-up Mary, more from the Elizabeth Taylor school the the Bellini painting we looked at the other day.
Looking it up to find out more, I discovered a thread where someone had one of these and wondered if it was genuine as it didn’t match other pictures online. And so I encountered the concept of the “changeling”. These are stamps whose colour has changed over time, faded, shifted or otherwise altered so they don’t look like original pressings or those kept in perfect conditions. More often than not, when someone thinks they have discovered a curiosity of a stamp – something unique, be it a special or a flaw – it’s actually a changeling.
Australia’s historic connections to the UK and Europe mean that much of the iconography of Santa, sleights and so forth is very similar to those countries.
Stamp of the Day 