1948.AUS.01Pan-Pacific Scout Jamboree
Australia·1948
Commemorative for the Pan-Pacific Scout Jamboree, Victoria (29 Dec 1948 – 9 Jan 1949)
Series details
Identity
- CodeSeries code YYYY.ENT.SS — year, 3-letter issuing entity, sequence (e.g. 1900.CGH.01).
1948.AUS.01- EntityPostal authority that issued the stamps (country, territory, or historical entity).
- Australia (AUS)
- Year
- 1948-11-15
- Event
- Commemorative for the Pan-Pacific Scout Jamboree, Victoria (29 Dec 1948 – 9 Jan 1949)
- TypeIssue kind. Charity issue = postage + voluntary surcharge (e.g. 6+4), not an overprint.
- Commemorative
Production
- Designer
- F. D. Manley (designer and engraver)
- Printer
- Note Printing Branch, Commonwealth Bank of Australia
- Process
- Engraving (recess)
- PerforationsHole gauge between stamps (e.g. 12, 13½). Higher ≈ finer.
- Comb 14 × 14¾
Catalog numbers
- DomfilDomfil thematic catalog number (scouting).
- 948.10
- ScottScott catalog number (Americas).
- AU 216
- MichelMichel catalog number (Europe / DE).
- AU 193
- YvertYvert & Tellier catalog number (FR).
- AU 163
- Stanley GibbonsStanley Gibbons catalog number (UK / Commonwealth).
- AU 227
History
On 15 November 1948 Australia issued a 2½ penny scarlet commemorative for the Pan-Pacific Scout Jamboree held in Victoria from 29 December 1948 to 9 January 1949. Domfil catalogues the stamp as 948.10 under «Pacific Jamboree», motif «Scout».
The design shows a Boy Scout in uniform. It was drawn and engraved by F. D. Manley and printed in recess by the Note Printing Branch of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. Sheets were of 160 stamps (two panes of 80 with a gutter pair), comb perforation 14 × 14¾, watermark small crown over C A. SOSOW records a print run of 90,307,200 and validity for postage until 1 September 1949. Catalogue cross-references: Scott AU 216, Michel AU 193, Yvert AU 163, Stanley Gibbons AU 227.
The Scout portrait is not generic stock art: SOSOW notes that the model was Owen Manley, son of the designer and engraver, a member of the 1st Essendon Rovers (Essendon, Victoria). That personal link — a real Australian Rover engraved by his father for a regional world-region jamboree — is the biographical detail that makes the issue especially interesting beyond the face-value jamboree commemorative itself.
ATA 1964 locates the Pan-Pacific Jamboree at Wonga Park, Victoria (29 Dec 1948 – 9 Jan 1949) and estimates about 10,000 Scouts from Australia, the United States, Canada, Great Britain, France, India, Lithuania, Pakistan and the Philippines. It names the Scout portrait as Kenneth Courtnay, a Rover Scout from Norwich, England, with a eucalyptus tree in the background. SOSOW instead identifies the model as Owen Manley, son of the engraver F. D. Manley and a member of the 1st Essendon Rovers — two collector traditions for the same design; both are recorded here.