Thursday, August 31, 2017

Identifying the Australia 1953 Food Produce 3½d Scarlet "Butter" Retouch Beneath Milking Cup on Cow Types

For some months now I have been busy looking through hundreds of the Australia 1953 Produce Food 3½d Scarlet Butter stamp trying to find all of the different types of the “Retouch Beneath Milking Cup on Cow” variety. Well, I have some good news on that front. I have now managed to find an example of all types. There are 12 types in total, and I am going to share them all with you today in this blog.

This stamp was released on 11th February 1953 as part of the Produce Food series. This set was issued to draw attention to the Australian Campaign to increase food production to meet overseas requirements. These stamps were distinguished for being the first new design to be printed by Letterpress in 20 years.

The series incorporated three designs, each featuring a different type of Australian produce. Wheat. Beef. Butter. The series was designed and engraved by George Lissenden, and was Rotary recessed-printed on Unwatermarked paper. The stamps are perforated 14.50 x 14.65.  The series was printed in sheets of 50 in a se-tenant arrangement of the three designs. This means that the Butter and Wheat stamps appeared 17 times on the sheet, and the Beef stamp appeared 16 times. It is also worth noting that the three stamp sequence changed on each row. The total number of Butter and Wheat stamps printed was 19,549,830 and the Beef stamp was printed 18,399,840 times (2015 Australian Commonwealth Specialists' Catalogue for Queen Elizabeth II 1952-1966, page 8/28-32).

Let’s take a look now at the different types of the “Retouch Beneath Milking Cup on Cow”.


Type I





Type II





Type III





Type IV





Type V





Type VI





Type VII





Type VIII





Type IX





Type X





Type XI





Type XII




Until my next blog.


Happy Stamping!