For broadcast on CBS Radio Network stations 
June 24-25, 2000:


Putting a certain 'stamp' on history.


The Stamp Collecting Report, I'm Lloyd de Vries.
 
There's a stamp controversy in the British Commonwealth over 
Prince William's 18th birthday. Six colonies and a former 
colony issued a total of 35 stamps this past week, showing 
various stages of the British heir's life....and not one of 
them includes his mother, Princess Diana. You may recall that 
relations between the Princess and the Queen were not very
good before Diana's death...and, as it happens, the stamp 
designs had to be approved by Buckingham Palace.


A spokesman for the agency that produced the stamps said it 
wanted to be "tasteful" and "sensitive" to Prince Charles. 
Crown Agents is partly owned by the British government.


Gibraltar, on the other hand, Britain's largest remaining 
colony, issued four stamps for William's birthday, and one does 
show Diana, holding him as an infant....but then, Gibraltar 
isn't represented by Crown Agents.


Stamps are a very visible way of memorializing someone....or, 
in some cases, I guess, un-memorializing.


And that's stamp collecting this week. 

I'm Lloyd de Vries, CBS News.

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