Isle of Man Post Office issued a set of six stamps in 2021 to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Mensa, the world’s oldest and largest high IQ society. The organisation was founded in England in 1946 by Roland Berrill, a barrister, and Dr Lance Ware, a scientist and lawyer, with the aim of creating a society for bright people. The only qualification for membership was, as it is today, a score within the top 2% of the general population in an approved intelligence test. The name “Mensa” was chosen because it means “table” in Latin and represents the idea that all members of the society sit as equals around a table, regardless of racial, religious, political and socioeconomic distinctions. Mensa is a global organisation with around 145,000 members in roughly 100 countries.
The stamps feature intriguing word and number puzzles provided by Mensa. These puzzles are a mixture of logic and non-verbal reasoning. The stamps also contain many other secrets – codes, places, messages and words hidden in microtext and cyphers, which are special codes that disguise the words in a message, making the message secret. Codebreakers need to work out the key to solve the cypher. They are all visible on the stamps, but you might need a magnifying glass and code-breaking skills to solve them all.
