Stamps from Great Britain

I sorted out the domestic (U.S.A.) stamps from the foreign ones.  The foreign ones were then sorted by country.

One of the largest piles was for England, or rather Great Britain.  So it would seem we have a lot of different stamps for Great Britain.  But no, Great Britain, at least in the 1930s, 1940s, and early 1950s, had one simple design for their stamps: the current monarch.  So basically there are only 3 different designs over 50 years

The oldest stamps we have are of King Edward VII, from 1902 -- Scott numbers 127 and 128.

Then comes King George V, from 1912.  Scott numbers 159, 160, 161.

He was King until 1936, when his son took over as Edward VIII, so a new stamp then.  Scott 230.

But then he abdicated, and his brother took over as King George VI so by 1937, we have a new set of stamps, Scott 235, 236, 237, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 246, 248.  These only vary by the amount of the stamp, and the color.

I'm not sure if 238, for example, just faded with age, or was somehow two slightly different colors.

The design of the higher denomination stamps (246, 248) was somewhat different.

And the Scott catalog says the color for 241 should be "gray grn", which I think means either "gray" or "green", but ours is a light blue.

These same stamps were sometimes used in the British colonies.  For example, we have two that were apparently used in Bahrain, and they just over-printed the standard stamps with the name of the country and the amount.

After King George died, Queen Elizabeth II took over, and we finally get new postage stamps in 1952.  Again, it's the same design, varying only for the amount and color.  Actually there were two designs.  Scott 292, 293, 294, 295 are one design, and Scott 296, 297, 298 are a slight variant.

Apparently there was a bit more variety, for a 1953 stamp for the coronation, Scott 315, and in 1958, a special stamp for the Commonwealth Games., Scott 338.

In theory, these are stamps for Great Britain, but I guess they are mainly for England.  In 1958, Scotland issued some of its own -- the same portrait of the Queen -- Scott numbers 1 and 3.

and so did Wales, Scott number 1.

The largest piles of these are the 2.5p stamps of both George and Elizabeth, and the 3p stamp of Elizabeth, there are probably over 20 of those.