Win 50K - Buy James Bond Stamps Issued to Mark Ian Fleming Centenary

The centenary of Ian Fleming's birth is marked by the UK Royal Mail issueing a set of James Bond commemorative stamps. In tandem with the issue the Royal Mail is also running a competition where one lucky stamp collector will win £50,000 (about US$95,000).

During the 1950s, writing at his Jamaican winter home, little did Ian Fleming know what a character he was creating. Over 50 years later James Bond is perhaps even better known now. and this set of commemorative stamps featuring the hero of 12 novels, two volumes of short stories and the blockbuster series of movies is bound to become a prized collectors item in future.

Ian Fleming's own life was far from mundane and undoubtedly gave him much of the insperation behind the Bond character and exotic lifestyle.

Born in 1908 Fleming was the son of Valentine Fleming, a Conservative MP, and the grandson of a Scottish Banker Robert Fleming. He wasn;t a product of the working class! Like James Bond, Fleming was educated at Eton. After a brief flirtation with the Diplomatic Corps Fleming took a post in Moscow with the Reuters news agency in 1929. In 1933 he covered the trial of 6 British engineers charged as spys by the Soviets and this story was the probably launching pad for his career as a writer.

In 1939 Ian Fleming joined the Royal Navy as an intelligence officer to work on secret assignments as PA to the Director of Naval Intelligence Admiral John Godfrey. Later it has been suggested Admiral Godfrey was one of the inspirations for the character 'M'. His time in the Navy enabled Fleming to travel widely and the information he saw, people he met and locations he visited undoubtedly fueled future storylines.

It is believed that Fleming advised William 'Wild Bill' Donovan when setting up the forerunner to the CIA, receiving a gun engraved with "For Special Services" as a gift in return. During World War II Fleming commanded 30 Assault Unit which undertook intelligence gathering missions behind enemy lines.

Casino Royale, published in 1953, was the first James Bond novel and appeared in the same year as the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Ian Fleming carried on writing Bond stories in to the early 1960s, The Spy Who Loved Me was published in 1962 (the same year as the Cuban Missile Crisis). On Her Majesty's Secret Service was next, published in 1963, the same year avid Bond reader, JF Kennedy, was assassinated.

Ian Fleming died in 1964 due to heart failure aged just 56. Before his death only three James Bond titles had been adapted for the cinema screen, Dr. No, From Russia with Love and Goldfinger.

So now the Royal Mail rightly celebrates the life of Ian Fleming by featuring the more famous fictional character he created on stamps and marking this special issue they are also running a competition to win £50,000. Anyone who buys the special presentation pack of stamps will receive a code to enter at JamesBondStamps.com for their chance to win. The stamps themselves can be purchased from RoyalMail.co.uk.

Because of the demand from non-collectors the competition is likely to cause, the more entrepreneurial reader could be wise to invest in a few presentation packs to later resell on eBay!