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Royal Mail has issued eight new stamps to celebrate the Queen’s service to the nation as she marks 70 years on the throne this weekend.
On Sunday 6 February the Queen will become the first British sovereign in history to reach the milestone.
The new stamps feature photographs of the monarch throughout the different decades of her reign and commemorate different aspects of her royal duties, from the Trooping of the Colour to worldwide tours.
The images range from 1957 – five years after the Queen ascended the throne in 1952 – through to 2020.
The earliest image, which appears on a first-class stamp, is a black and white photograph of a young Elizabeth II smiling and waving during a tour of Washington DC. She is seen next to the late Duke of Edinburgh, who died in April 2021.
The stamp marks the monarch’s first Jubilee without her husband.
The other first-class stamps include images of the Queen smiling in a burgundy outfit and hat during a visit to the MI5 headquarters in February 2020, on a visit to Worcester in April 1980, and one of her on horseback during the 1978 Trooping of the Colour.
The stamps also aim to depict the Queen’s fashion choices over the years and including a photograph of her wearing a 1960s style hat with a shift dress in the West Indies in 1966.
The remaining three stamps feature pictures of the monarch touring the Provincial Museum of Alberta in Canada in 2005, the Queen meeting the public during her Silver Jubilee in 1977, and of her in her Order of the Garter robes in 1999.
“These stamps are a celebration of the second Elizabethan Age and a tribute to a remarkable lifetime of duty and public service,” said Simon Thompson, chief executive of Royal Mail.
“We are honoured to be releasing them to mark the occasion of the first Platinum Jubilee in the UK’s history, a momentous occasion.”
None of the stamps in the new set include the Queen’s silhouette, which is usually a requirement of special stamp issues.
Because the Queen’s image is used in the actual design of the stamp, this removes the need for the silhouette, the Royal Mail said.
The stamps will be available to purchase from 7,000 Post Office branches across the UK from Friday 4 February.
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