For the first time, the Postal Museum is to put one of Mercury’s “priceless” collector’s albums on show – its value enhanced by the fact that it is one of the late rock star’s rare personal possessions in museum ownership.
The stamps that the young Mercury grouped together are unusually shaped into patterns on each page, and will be on view to the museum’s visitors in London from 13 July. The display is part of the city’s celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Pride movement in Britain.
All 54 pages of Mercury’s album will also be available online this summer on the museum’s website.
Many of his stamps are from British Commonwealth territories, with some from eastern Europe, and they often reflect his early life. “The real value of this collection is not in the stamps themselves but in its rich historical value and connection to one of the world’s greatest ever entertainers. As pop memorabilia and for cultural reference, Freddie Mercury’s collection is priceless,” the museum’s senior archivist, Gavin McGuffie, has said.
There are clear signs on its pages of the artistic talent to come. Each stamp has been positioned to produce symmetry in both shape and colour, leaving plenty of space on the black pages. (TheGuardian)
Recently Queen become third band ever to be honoured with Royal Mail stamp
For the third time in history, the UK’s Royal Mail is honoring a legendary band by issuing a set of stamps. After the Beatles in 2007 and Pink Floyd in 2016, Queen will now be seeing their faces in mailboxes in July.
A kind of magic is on its way, as rockers Queen are to become only the third band ever to have a set of commemorative stamps printed in their honour.
The new set, which will go on sale from July 9, feature eight of the band's most popular album covers, including 1975's A Night At The Opera – most famous for Bohemian Rhapsody – and 1991's Innuendo, which was the band's last album released in the lifetime of singer Freddie Mercury.
Besides the album covers, the miniature sheet which accompanies the stamps features images of the band performing throughout the years, with a shot of bassist John Deacon in the Hammersmith Odeon in 1975, drummer Roger Taylor at Hyde Park the year later, and shots of Brian May in Budapest and Freddie Mercury in Wembley Stadium, both in 1986.
“It’s hard to put into words what I feel when looking at these beautiful stamps,” Queen guitarist Brian May said in a release. “Since we four precocious boys started out on our quest 50 years ago, our lives have been devoted to making our impossible dream come true. Sometimes it’s strange to wake up and realize the position in which we are now held – we have become a national institution! And nothing brings this home more than this incredible tribute from Royal Mail. It’s particularly poignant to look at this collection of images now – now that we are all in a world dominated by a coronavirus, in which none of this could have happened. I just know that I [have] an overwhelming desire to own one of these sets! Somehow it will be a way of persuading myself that it really DID all happen!”