
![]() 1905 New Zealand Government Life Insurance Lighthouses Without V.R. "The original design of Government Life's first stamp was drawn by departmental secretary W. B. Hudson. For a motif he decided on a symbolic lighthouse and may have been inspired by the best-known of all such structures, the Eddystone Light on the Cornish Coast near Plymouth, England. It had been completed only eight years earlier, at a time when New Zealand was beginning to weather the effects of a lengthy economic downturn. Eddystone stood on a solid foundation which could resist waves raised by the fiercest of gales and so was an eminently suitable symbol for insurance purposes. It represented an immovable structure and, extending the metaphor, sent out a message of hope to those battered by the storms of economic uncertainty." Read more ... 1971 First Satellite Station in New Zealand Did you know that the coloured dots on both stamps represented existing satellite earth stations in the Pacific? Read more ... ![]() 1940 Centennial Did you know that the five penny stamp depicts the assertion of British Sovereignty over the South Island with the hoisting of the British flag at Akaroa on the 11th of August 1840? Read more ... | |||||||||||||