Pictorials (High Values)

The 10c, 15c, 25c, 30c, $1 and $2 stamps were designed by Mark Cleverley, the 23c, 50c by M V Askew and the 18c and 20c by Enid Hunter.  The 10c, 15c, 18c and 20c stamps were printed by Harrison & Sons, the 25c and 30c by Bradbury Wilkinson, the 23c and 50c by Joh Enschede en Zonen and the $1 and $2 by Courvoisier.

New Zealand Coat of Arms with a silhouette of Queen Elizabeth II - 10c
Issued 12 March 1970
The stamp was released at this time to coincide with a Royal Visit to New Zealand of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

Fish Hook - 15c
Issued 20 January 1971
The Maori used one-piece hooks of bone and two-piece hooks of wood with barbs of bone or dog's teeth.  Hooks were used on lines, line and pole or for trolling.

Maori War Club - 18c
Issued 20 January 1971
The Maori club featured on the stamp is of the ceremonial type dating from 1860.  Such clubs were carved from greenstone, bone, or stone and used as a weapon in hand to hand fighting.

Maori Moku - Tattoo - 20c
Issued 20 January 1971
Every Maori man and woman of rank was tattooed.  Pigments were made from soot and the whole process was an extremely painful one carried out over a long period of time.

Egmont National Park - 23c
Issued 1 December 1971
Mount Egmont / Taranaki, the dominant feature of the 79,000 acre National Park and one of the world's most symmetrical mountains, is the main feature of the stamp.

Hauraki Gulf Maritime Park - 25c
Issued 1 September 1971
The park embraces the seaward approaches to Auckland's Waitemata Harbour and is bounded by the Coromandel Peninsula, Great Barrier Island, Little Barrier Island and Whangaparaoa Peninsula.  It is renowned for fishing, sheltered waters, and the many islands which make the area ideal for safe boating.

Mt Cook National Park - 30c
Issued 1 September 1971
One third of this park in the south west of the South Island consists of permanent snow and glacier ice.

Abel Tasman National Park - 50c
Issued 1 September 1971
The park on the shores of Tasman Bay in the north west corner of the South Island. The park contains coastal and elevated bush-clad country.  The design depicts a typical view seawards from the park.

Geothermal - $1.00
Issued 14 April 1971
Geothermal power has for many years been used for electricity generation.  New Zealand sits astride the boundary zone between two of the twelve great plates which comprise the surface of the planet earth. Considerable geothermal activity is produced as a result of the meeting of the Pacific Plate and the Indo-Australia Plate.  Steam finds its way to the surface in several areas but particularly in the vicinity of Rotorua.

Agriculture - $2.00
Issued 14 April 1971
Agricultural technology is of vital importance to New Zealand, and scientific developments are given a high degree of priority.  The molecular structure on this stamp represents a portion of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA).

Stamp bulletin

This stamp issue first appeared in New Zealand Post Stamp Bulletin No. 3 in December 1969.

Acknowledgments: Bulletin scanned and provided by John Biddlecombe of the New Zealand Society of Great Britain. Their web site offers further information useful to those interested in the stamps and postal history of New Zealand. Link: http://www.nzsgb.org.uk/