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2007. The 40th anniversary of the first stamps featuring Queen Elizabeth II's head. That's the basic definitive stamp that you see everyday. Familar, yes, but those stamps are still controversial - even 40 years on!

Professor Hedgecoe was commissioned by the Post Office back in the '60s to photograph HRH The Queen for a new postage stamp. The prints were sent to sculptor Arnold Machin. Machin made an exact relief plaster image, which Hedgecoe then photographed. The rest, as they say, is history.

The iconic image the two men created became the definite issue of the British postage stamp and also the final matrix for the design on Commonwealth stamps in New Zealand and Australia, and for use on commemorative souvenirs. Since then, it has been reproduced over 175 billion times!

But history has tended to gloss over Professor Hedgecoe's role, giving all the credit to the equally deserving Arnold Machin. The definitives are even referred to as "Machins".

Our cover therefore seeks to redress the balance and celebrates Professor Hedgecoe, without whom the definitive stamps would not exist as we know them.The image on our cover is based on Professor Hedgecoe's photographic work while working with Arnold Machin on the stamps. It has a London special postmark and our signatory is Professor Hedgecoe himself.

Royal Mail's miniature sheet is also very interesting. To mark the 40th anniversary, Royal Mail is withdrawing the present £1 violet definitive to replace it with replaced with a £1 ruby red Machin instead. The significance is that it is Machin's ruby anniversary.

Royal Mail are also releasing a miniature sheet which holds both the new ruby and the old violet £1 Machins along with two new 1st Class stamps showing an early Machin from 1967 on the left hand stamp and a portrait of the man himself on the right hand stamp.

You can choose to have our cover with the full miniature sheet, as illustrated, or JUST with the two new pictorial stamps, taken out of the sheet (not illustrated because it is the same envelope design, just with the two large stamps from the sheet instead of the whole sheet). The stamp cover has an alternative signature - Edward Short. He was the Postmaster General 40 years ago and commissioned Machin to produce the bust of the Queen.

Quick Facts: The First Machin/Hedgecoe Stamps is a First-day Cover Issue date (2007-06-05): 05 June 2007

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