I updated this page in my stamp album today.
I added a new line of ½ penny springbok stamps, from 1947.
Only a very finely calibrated ruler will show the ¼ mm size difference between the printed designs of the stamps issued in 1937 (18½x22½ mm), in August 1947 (18¼x22¼ mm) issue and in November 1947 (18×22 mm).
A quarter mm is only one one-hundredth of an inch!
The postal authorities tried to squeeze in a little more white space between the stamps in the 1947 printings, for the perforation machine.
*The “Drommedaris” was a Dutch ‘jaght’, a type of sailing vessel, built in 1645. It was operated by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) from 1645 to 1661. The Drommedaris played a significant role in the establishment of a halfway stop for VOC ships on the trade route between Europe and the East Indies.
Ultimately, the Drommedaris’s voyages to Table Bay led to the establishment of a crucial trading post and settlement at the Cape of Good Hope, in what would become the Mother City— the city of Cape Town, South Africa.