John Hardinge has been researching information from many sources for at least the last 30 years. These sources include the Tasmanian Post Office archives, the early postal historians such as Purves, Campbell and Avery, and his own very extensive collection, and consulting with many collectors and contemporary specialists.

The author has distilled all known information on his subject into one volume, and as such this book must be considered the last word on the history of Tasmania’s hand-held datestamps.  Much of the material in the book has never been placed on the public record before.  A must-have.

The rarity ratings have been verified by a group of experienced collectors over the last few years.  While the rarity ratings will be the main interest for some collectors, chapters explaining the history of datestamp issues, datestamp types (extensively illustrated) and information on the development of the Post Office in Tasmania will appeal to those interested in the wider picture.

Published in hard cover on bright archive grade gloss paper, with stitched binding, heavy grade turned top and base double thickness dust cover, and best of all, each individually calligraphy hand numbered, and each personally signed by the Author, John Hardinge. 

LOTS of circular postmarks on the common Tasmania 1899 "Pictorial" series are worth several $100’s each - indeed quite a few are WAY into the 4 figure region.  Demand is global, and supply near non-existent of the scarcer ones - hence the eye-watering prices.

The “TEEPOOKANA” shown nearby sold for $3,620 at auction - most readers of this would not have given it a second glance it if were on a circuit book page marked at $1 - the underlying stamp is retail 10¢.  Indeed there were THREE different cds of “TEEPOOKANA” - each type is rated “RRRRR”!  The first cancels had 3 words – TEE POO KANA.

And not just tiny remote PO’s have rare cancels. There are masses of HOBART and LAUNCESTON cancels in here rated “RRRRR” - if you do not have this book youi would simply dismiss them as common strikes from big city General Post Offices.  Wrong - lots of great data in here.

All books are mailed carefully wrapped in bubble wrap to protect them, and each is hand numbered on outer bubble wrap, by the same hand as the inner calligraphy.  A nice touch!   A very professional effort by all involved at the Tasmania Philatelic Society - top marks.

Shown nearby is the Australia KGV 2d Orange INVERTED Watermark stamp, along with normal watermark.  Near 500 MILLION of these oranges were printed, and only a very few inverts ever surfaced.  

Both stamps as you can see, have IDENTICAL date handstamps from “Burracoppin Western Australia, April 5, 1922.”  This is a TINY little one-horse town, right in the remote WA Nullarbor Desert.

A reader of my column some years back read that someone had stiffed me on the sale of another copy of this stamp error shown nearby - also cancelled “Burracoppin,” which had cost me my $1,000 profit margin.  He backed off a firm price deal, and chose “Auction Roulette.”

This genius literally lost himself $3,000 cold in the process, as he stupidly went down the uncertain path of auctioning it, and got $3,000 less in his pocket than what I’d agreed to pay – cash, same day!  Weird - full detail here - tinyurl.com/Burracoppin

An 85 year old WA reader of that column collected postmarks, not stamps, so he went to his WA cancels, as he recalled having a couple of nice “'Burracoppin” cds, also on 2d Orange KGV's.  He'd hinged them onto album pages about 50 years earlier, and had not even looked at watermarks - back then, interest in those was negligible. 

The two used copies he possessed, had the same date "Burracoppin" cancel - but one was inverted watermark, and one was not!  Amazing.  After receiving them, and checking the error was genuine, I sent him a very large cheque same day as promised, and he was absolutely delighted.  The biggest find he ever made in his very long stamp lifetime. 

Clearly April 1922 saw the last of the invert sheet used up, (the other copy recorded, shown nearby has a March date) and the first stamp of a new sheet was used - with normal watermark.  Lovely pigeon pair - clean and fresh - perfectly upright cds on the error stamp.  Cleaner cut looking perfs than the other copies recorded exhibit.

As postage back then in the 1920s was 1d for a domestic letter, and 3d was the Registered fee, it is more than likely this pair was off a Registered cover - shame they ever got soaked off.  Last stamp of one sheet, and first stamp off a new sheet etc.  Shade is slightly different as can be seen.

The recent mainstream auction catalogue of this pair speculated: "Could the error be the result of a wmk bit that was inverted on the dandy roll, rather than the sheet being inverted prior to printing!?"  I kid you not.  Real ‘ebay Dreamer’ stuff!

A wonderful pair - no other major Australian used rarity exists with a same day town cancel with error and normal.  The highest recorded price paid for one of these is $18,640 obtained at auction by Prestige Philately in 2004. That stamp was way off centre, with a heavy Moonta (SA) cds. 

SG catalogue today is #62W cat £5,500, and ACSC is 95a at $8,500.  Still a desirable inverted watermark, and after near a century, only a few are recorded.  BEWARE - this 2d Orange stamp perforated “OS” with inverted watermark, is relatively plentiful.  

I sold the matched cancel pair very quickly to a client, and dealer colleague Kevin Morgan in Melbourne mentioned to me today that he had now bought it, and had found this story when he was researching the error. 

Again, I’d have cheerfully paid $1,500 more in cash than foolish vendor eventually gets for these - and if anyone wants to be their next custodian, Kevin has the pair in stock at $A5,000.  A totally unique pair for some astute reader!

Something many readers may not have ever seen, are the “A Gift Parcel From Australia” official Postal Stationary items, that are more commonly known here to collectors and the trade, as “WW2 Food Parcel Labels”.

The end of World War II in 1945 saw Britain leave many food items rationed.  Indeed rationing persisted in Britain until the mid-1950s.  Friends and relatives in “the bread basket” of Australia literally sent very many 100,000s of heavy gift food parcels to the UK, to help them get back on their feet. 

This BBC link outlines the Food Rationing in the UK well after WW2, indeed the system did not end until 1954, which might surprise many!  tinyurl.com/RationUK has more details - Meat, bacon, sugar, and butter were all rationed nationally, right up to the QE2 Coronation year in 1953. 

In the late 1940s (indeed until 1954) Britons were subject to rationing.  Even as late as 1950, goods such as these were still rationed in the UK - canned and dried fruit, chocolate biscuits, treacle, syrup, jellies, soap, sugar - and of course much fresh produce like milk, butter and meat, and of course petrol.

Australia was the bread basket for the "Motherland" for much of this produce, which was freely available in Australian stores, and inexpensive.  Rationed goods in England, that transported well - such as canned and dried fruit, chocolate biscuits, treacle, syrup, jellies, soap, sugar were cheap to buy here, and of course greatly sought after in Britain.

Retailers - mainly The Myer Emporium of Melbourne, negotiated in 1946 to have the dies of 3/7d KGVI in maroon, and 5/10d KGVI in deep blue used, for embossing their labels.  With such clearly pre-determined Food Parcel contents, the previous fiddly customs labels were not required.

The Myer Emporium monolith store approached the Australia Post Office to emboss gummed Food Parcel use labels for them, that had these impressed stamp on them, so as to rapidly identify sendings that qualified for this new low postage rate. 

The Post Office agreed to this request, and as you can see, the 5/10d blue KGVI head stamp impression, was in line with that standard design die type used on pre-stamped envelopes, and Registered envelopes of the time.

Britain waived customs fees on these parcels, so they were a huge success, and some 273,722 of the 5/10d labels were produced. They are more often seen than the 3/7d, of which 107,539 labels were sold, so near 400,000 parcels emanated using these labels alone. 

The Victoria Department of Agriculture or also ordered the 5/10d Blue KGVI labels.  One certainly sees mint examples offered now and again, but I have seldom seen used copies ever offered, even at large Auctions.  I can’t recall seeing any used examples offered in recent years, and have never owned one.

The current ACSC values of $1,000 mint, and $1,500 used for those seem well out of skew with the other types, to me at least.  The USED should be 2 or 3 times as high as the current ACSC level in my view, as mint are seen around in the market.  Even at $3,000 used they’d appear on the low side, to me anyway.

By late 1949, with rationing in UK beginning to ease, the reduced demand for these parcels no longer justified the embossing, and The Myer Emporium Melbourne reverted to using adhesive stamps, or a more usual meter machine for the postage - see image nearby.

The large Myer label illustrated nearby of same x as the embossed version, from January 1948 has a 5/10d Meter impression, presumably applied in-store.  In THEORY it should be worth far more than the 5/10d blue embossed, as these are RARE. 

These parcel labels are of additional interest to those who use the Seven Seas brand albums, as there are spaces for these label “cut-outs” on many sets of their pages, and even these small cut outs from top right corner sell very well when offered. 

The very thin, very fragile, and very large gummed labels were licked onto parcels, sent by sea, and 2 or 3 months latter arrived in Britain, where the grateful recipients tore the parcels open in excitement, and tossed away the outer brown paper wrapper with the address section. 

The label looked like a common retailer address label, and not a stamp in the usual way - just a meter imprint.  The flimsy label was very often damaged in the long sea transit, and even if some kid tried to peel it off the parcel for their collection, they always tore or thinned it etc, due to the very large size, and strong gum.

Near all used copies I have ever seen offered, have had small transit faults/creases/tears or thinning.  These special labels only lasted in use for 3 years (until 1949) hence their great scarcity today in complete form, even when damaged.

tinyurl.com/1946Food has a great deal of discussion on them, and shows many of the other different types and styles and forms and labels generally unrecorded so far, for sending Food Parcel to Britain, and are seldom seen.  Others may exist.  A great new collecting field to look into!

Just as I was filing this column December 2, noticed a weird figure obtained for a tatty looking NSW Duty stamp.  An 1873 NINE PENCE overprint on 1d green QV.  Start price was 99c and the ebay Bunny Brigade drove it up to $712.56 for some reason.

Me, I’d have left it in a stockbook probably, so someone must have recognised it was pretty scarce.  Huge thin on reverse, and of course being eBay, the seller did not mention the heavily toned/foxed perfs - who needs to mention such minor detail.  Gotta love Bunnies! 

The John Barefoot Revenues Catalogue has it as NSW #48, cat £10 quid used.  Badly thinned and badly foxed - 10% to 20% of that catalogue value in the REAL world, outside of WackoBay. No IQ test required to bid there - does the bidder own a Barefoot Cat - of COURSE not!

As a UK dealer commented when he saw it raised for comment on stampboards.com -  “If I'd seen this in an album it would have failed even minimum standards for kiloware, so I'm fascinated what makes it so rare.”

The stamp business for me has gone BALLISTIC this year.  The weak $A has seen a vast surge in orders from overseas, USA especially, and particularly for better pieces in the 3 and 4 figure plus range, that I mostly deal in.  Other dealer friends report the same kind of story and pattern this year.

Super low interest rates globally, and often nervous share markets, and even more nervous real estate markets in many countries, has seen a good deal of savvy money switching into better stamps.  Which often rise 5% or more a year - and that rise is mostly Tax Free for private collectors.

We spent last Christmas Day in Nicosia Cyprus, and were kindly invited by my stamp friend Akis Christou to lunch, for the full Greek extended family Christmas gathering - quite a wonderful experience!  Next day we crossed the fortified Green Line that divides Nicosia, and toured Turkish Cyprus.

Akis has a large Gold Medal winning collection of early Cyprus - most especially the CYPRUS overprints on GB stamps.  He has a HUGE basement in his large home filled with collections - amazing stuff and very interesting to look over.

One of his interests is the 1935 Silver Jubilee stamp issues of Australia. He has albums and albums of them.  Proofs, covers, errors, multiples, varieties - you name it.  He has never visited here, but just loves that issue!

He runs the largest bookstore in Cyprus - Soloneion, and has a pretty decent section there for stamp accessories, and albums etc.  Margo took this photo nearby of us standing in front of part of it all, with a lot of “Lighthouse” product.

We flew from there to Austria, to Denmark for while, then way down to Lisbon Portugal for New Year’s Eve, and up to Porto - very pretty place.  Then a flight across to Barcelona for a few days, and back to Frankfurt for the lonnng flight home.

We travelled an awful lot during this year, domestically and overseas, and this Christmas fly to Korea, then Ethiopia for a few days.  Then fly to Windhoek, capital of Namibia, once South West Africa, and rent a car, and wander about the game parks, and arid sand dunes etc. 

Then overland via the wildlife of Botswana, to Victoria Falls Zimbabwe for New Year’s Eve, then to Zambia. Fly back home via Addis Ababa Ethiopia, and then to frozen Beijing of all places, on the way home. 

That extreme 5,000 metre altitude really leaves you totally gasping heavily for breath, even after a 10 metre flat walk!  Lots more photos here for anyone interested -  tinyurl.com/GlenTibet    We both survived the dreaded altitude sickness I got for 3 days, after acting the fool at El Alto airport in La Paz Bolivia once, and that was just a “mere” 4,000+ metres high!

We book a private guide and driver for all these trips, as it gives you the flexibility to get to a lower altitude or different destination fast if needed.  As our time away from the stamp desk is always very limited, we always do that, and we fitted in Chengdu and 4 days in leafy Kunming as well.