Sir Paul has designed a set of six stamps for the Isle of Man making him the world's first musician to design a set of legal postage stamps. The stamp bureau will be printing 170,000 of the McCartney edition which has been given royal approval by Her Majesty The Queen.
Dot Tilbury, department manager of the Isle of Man stamp bureau, explains that Sir Paul was invited to design the stamps two years ago following the success of his paintings exhibition in New York city. “It wasn't the usual formal letter. I said if he did it we'd be chuffed – and we are. When we received Paul's designs they so cheered up the whole department that we christened them the ‘Happy Stamps’, a theme Paul loved as it reflected his inspiration from fond memories he had of the island from a childhood visit when he was growing up in Liverpool. Paul’s stamps are truly works of art. They will be prized by collectors worldwide. We anticipate that the issue will be extremely popular; the stamps have just the look that collectors like and, as art, they can hang on the wall in any décor."
Sir Paul hold fond memories of his boyhood visit to the Isle of Man. He recalls:
"It's been such a long time since I was on the island, but I can still remember how beautiful the landscape was and how friendly the people were - even to us, a pack of noisy kids from Liverpool. It's no exaggeration to say that it was one of my happiest trips of my childhood."
A proportion of the proceeds from the sale of Sir Paul's stamps will go to his Adopt-a-Minefield charity. Sir Paul stated, “I'm very pleased that the Adopt-a-Minefield campaign will benefit from this issue, which I was honored to create from happy memories of an old stomping ground”.
The Paul McCartney stamps will be issued by the Isle of Man Post Office on July 1, 2002.
http://www.gov.im/stamps/welcome.asp?article=products.asp?categoryid=55
