I often get asked by serious local
collectors of a suggestion for an interesting "NEW" field to
collect.
One that has no catalogues or listings,
yet has material readily findable, and clearly with good chances
of some decent "finds" here and there. And has some "Blue Sky".
And most important, something that
offers a CHALLENGE!
I bought a lot recently of a dozen
apparently different Australia “SPECIMEN” stamp folders - going
back around 75 years.
These were sold by AP from 1913, and the
price for most sets for the next 50+ years was around £1 (WAY
under face) and for that - FULL of stamps!
A bargain at £1 each!
I cannot recall any discussion
on these packs ever taking place before - so here we
go.
The Capital City GPO Philatelic
Bureaus all allegedly had them on sale if you asked.
In those days there was zero
Philatelic mail order to speak of, nor any marketing by
them. Indeed no PO 'Bulletin' in this era of any kind
existed, so these packs were largely overlooked, and
unknown to many.
Each folder contained “Melbourne
GPO” corner CTO copies of the values up to 5/- in
general, and over that they were overprinted "Specimen".
(There are exceptions - the 10/- 3rd Wmk perf OS corner
CTO is one, but that was NOT the general rule.)
The 5/- Harbour Bridge source
The stamp market worldwide would
basically have no used 5/- Harbour Bridges in it, if it were not
for the 1,000s of CTO copies that appeared in these “Specimen”
packs.
The small size folders opened up,
(mostly tri-fold) and there were lines of glassine strips to
house the stamps in .. a little like today's stockbook pages.
The rare Territory Packs had the Norfolk
1960 10/- Bird o/p Specimen (in 3 or 4 very different font and
placing variations) and the 1953 Definitives CTO etc.
The PNG stamps in there included the
various high values from 1952, to the late 1960s overprinted
“Specimen” Bird Of Paradise, and all the lower values were also
CTO.
There are thus three different PNG 10/-
issues overprinted "Specimen" available depending on the year
you bought your pack.
Never sold well
Oddly despite the Aladdin’s
Cave of goodies therein,
these packs never sold
well. NONE of them.
The
ACSC now gives us the exact
numbers of each stamp sold,
that were overprinted for
inclusion in these, and
typically it was a couple of
1000 for each of the higher
values.
Many of the 'Specimens' once
found in these packs sell
for very many $100s each
today .. indeed, often
several $1000's a stamp
Collectors never
learned
Collectors
never learned .. even the pack that
was on open sale until Decimal
currency in 1966 had the 1963/4
Navigator Specimen set 4 in there -
today a $700 quartet in MUH
condition.
These packs
were on sale up to the late 1960s ….
I recall buying one at $2 at the
Adelaide GPO Philatelic window as a
kid with all the decimal issues in
there.
So, given
the obvious reality that many the
pre-decimal STAMPS inside are rare
-- how scarce must be the FOLDERS
they came in be?
Our early
stamp booklets can fetch quite
massive prices whether or not they
have all or ANY stamps in them.
$50,000-$60,000 a complete book is
the MINIMUM real-world going rate
for the scarcer Australia
Commonwealth £1 booklet types.
The £1
booklet shown nearby sold at auction
on $44,342 in January 2003, as I
reported at the time. No other
country on earth has booklet prices
anything even NEAR those of
Australia.
Arthur Gray
or other keen booklet collectors,
will I am sure give you $10,000+ for
an EMPTY £1 booklet cover, if
it is one he does not have.
A ~$60,000 Booklet today.
Many of the £1 booklets we KNOW from the archives records were issued - and widely sold, but have never been seen – even an empty cover. The ACSC prices £1 Booklets as incomplete if that is how recorded.
An empty booklet cover is easily $10,000 – yet these empty “Specimen” packs sell for the cost of a few of the cheapest price stamps originally inside. If you want a challenge - with vast upside .. here you go!
"Kid's presents"
Generations of serious collectors did not like these packs or their contents, mostly regarding them as "kid's presents".
The puny numbers sold clearly show us that collectors did not buy them in any numbers for the half century they were on open offer.
In nearly all cases they appear to have been bought as easy to mail cheap gifts for youngsters, relatives, or stamp pen friends overseas to offer them "a set of our current stamps".
We tend to forget today that stamps were then a RED HOT interest field for youngsters, and it was a very common thing for adults to send them as gifts to young Johnny or little Billy etc.
The recipients in 99% of cases (Junior or Adult!) seem to have removed the stamps, hinged them into albums, and tossed away the cardboard folder. Exactly as occurred with early booklets.
Near all high values pre-War stamps existing are hinged, and to bear this out - many indeed have no gum, from the Roo era especially
.
Why all the no gum CTO?
Well over 50% of the 1932 CTO 5/- Sydney Harbour Bridges in existence have no gum in my experience. Why?
I have bought dozens of junior albums over the decades where kids have LICKED these full gum "Specimen" and "CTO" stamps into albums, as being youngsters they could not afford hinges. The only way to remove them is to soak the page.
The folder outers appeared to be a rather ad-hoc matter, and the colour of the board, the texture of board, the fonts and layout and wording varied considerably at times, and more subtly in others.
Ever seen one of these?
This lot I
bought, had the dealer name Miller
Brothers on one folder. Not an
overprint .. they clearly went and found
the PO’s pack printer and had them make
their own pack in a very different cover
design.
The inside
appearance matches the PO types exactly,
so I assume they sourced the PO printer
and duplicated the style?
I sold the lot
for $A40 apiece, and in years to come
that will be shown to have been an
absurd pittance!
In 30 years in
stamps I had never seen or heard that
this Miller Brothers special pack even
existed. This empty pack alone should
be worth $100s if these are ever listed
out.
Conning the
PO Staff!
We do know
Millers were
infamous for
being cunning,
in conning the
lazy PO staff -
and ordering for
instance 160
"Specimen" packs
at 4pm on a
Friday etc.
Clearly nothing
like that number
would be made
up, and on hand
at PO, as they
sold so slowly -
a few 100 per
year even at
major GPO's.
Millers would –
it is said -
helpfully
suggest the PO
staffer handed
over the full
sheets of 160 in
CTO and
Specimen, and
their staff
would helpfully
undertake the
enormously time
consuming and
tedious job of
ripping up the
30 sheets of 160
stamps.
Lazy PO staffers
it seems clearly
thought that was
a great deal,
(for them) and
agreed.
Miller's cunning
trickery is the
sole reason
nearly all of
the pre 1950s
Imprint and
Monograms and
multiplies exist
today in CTO or
Specimen.
Only source of CTO Blocks.
They were not silly - they KNEW they would get a
premium for them - more so than had they ended up with only single stamps!
Anyway this special Miller pack in the lot I bought
above makes it very clear that they sold the packs with their own name
printed on it .. a wonderful new discovery - to me anyway.
I had assumed they simply used the standard type PO
packs to add the torn up stamps into - after they ripped out the imprints
and monograms etc.
The ACSC now lists and prices EVERY CTO stamp
that appeared in these packs. A very common stamp like a 1913 1d Kangaroo
is cat 25 DOLLARS with Melbourne CTO cancel, but sells for 25 CENTS with a
normal cancel etc.
Anyway, I am sure other readers have these early
packs to show me .. hopefully different designs to these may exist? Let me
know if you do.
If we get some useful input and comment, editor
Geoff Kellow might be able to list these pack designs in a future ACSC.
NOT all packs are original.
I sometimes see packs that have 10
or 20 or 30 or so CTO and “Specimen” stamps inside.
These contents in 99% of cases are
NOT as were originally in there.
Often there is a bizarre mish-mash
of unconnected reigns, series, and part sets. Dealers often
placed random CTO stamps that arrived into stock over a
period into an empty pack, and then sold it "as is" when
near full.
I have VERY seldom over the decades
bought totally original packs from the pre war era.
Probably only a half dozen in all.
Guaranteed ORIGINAL overprints!
One was last year, and I bought the
superb condition pack illustrated nearby - still in an
original brown PO outer envelope.
That pack had among the original
contents of 19 stamps, the 1938 £1 'Robes' Definitive
overprinted "Specimen" - along with the far cheaper 10/- and
lower values down to the ½d orange.
Caution Required.
This overprint is very heavily
forged, so obtaining it via such a pack is to be honest the
ONLY way to be certain it is genuine.
Most “Certificates” on these are at
best – educated guesses. It was only sold in these
"Specimen" packs during part of 1944 - hence the scarcity
today.
The only Post Office sold multiples
of this stamp still existing are a pair - and a block of 4.
Contents of the “Robes” Pack
The ACSC suggests these multiples
came from Miller Brothers. The unique block 4 is on the
front cover of the current KGVI ACSC Cat. It would sell for
$10,000 today is my guess.
Printer’s Waste Hoard
Downies in Melbourne
auctioned several very heavily ink smeared printer's
waste blocks about 5-10 years back that had not been
on the market for about 60 years.
As I recall they came from
the estate of Ararat Victoria dealer Leslie Grant,
and various other “printer's waste” from the 1940s
era was mixed (and not described!) among the bulk
lots of his material offered.
It was pretty funny seeing
cartons of stuff estimated at $100 or so, get many
$1000s! Even then, the faint threat of Federal
Police raids was not attractive, so it was sold
un-described.
A Miller Brothers “Special”
As an example of the Miller
Brothers legacy shown nearby is one block of 8 Roos they
undoubtedly sold.
C of A watermarked 5/- Roos are
not scarce SINGLY in CTO condition. I have 30 or so in
stock, and they are about $30-$50 each, depending on
centering etc.
HOWEVER, in a large BLOCK with
Melbourne CTO cancel they are rare ... as the Miller
Brothers trick is the only way they could have occurred.
I sold that block this week to a
client for $750 -- so that is about DOUBLE what 8
x single stamps would fetch.
I bought it from the "Arthur
Gray" Kangaroo collection when in New York, and even
there it went too cheaply, obviously.
Often used BLOCKS of 4 of things
can fetch 10 or 20 times a single stamp price - i.e. not
4 times.
And the market in Australia for
USED blocks is growing madly -- possibly as I keep
urging folks to buy them.
However one day they will thank
me, when the ACSC lists and prices them all in USED
blocks - as they surely will
New Queensland Cancel Book
My mantra to readers for 30
years of writing columns has been – “Knowledge Is
Power”.
Collectors HATE buying
literature in general terms – no idea why.
Publishing philatelic literature
is NOT the path to financial success - that much I do
know for sure.
Luckily collectors keep on
publishing, and by their efforts we all benefit.
Numeral cancels are plentiful on the Roo and KGV head
issues.
Would you glance twice at this?
Nearly everyone reading this
column has stamps from this era with numeral cancels on
them.
Most of you have no idea whether
they are worth 10 cents, 10 dollars, or $100 dollars.
Or often a LOT more!
The question is - just how do
you know WHICH one you have?
Unless you buy a few reference
books, you will not. (The 1d KGV head shown nearby is
worth about $300 for instance.)
Freeman/White book a “Must”
My column 5 years back on the
quite superb Hugh Freeman hard cover book on VICTORIA
numeral cancels emphasised this point –
www.tiika.notlong.com
I
still have a few copies in stock of these magnificent
books at issue price of $150 – and as you can
see, locating one half decent cancel pays for the book
several times over.
This
“1697” cancel shown nearby is only rated “RRR” in there
... imagine what the scarce RRRR are worth! And
a "NNR" rating ("number not recorded") obviously trumps
that again. Value without that “1697” cancel - about 2¢!
The
stamp illustrated sold for over $400 at auction .. near
THREE times the cost of this book!
Sold for over $400
The Freeman/White book
illustrates around 2000 actual cancels on stamps and
covers - not drawings as other state handbooks have
used. The central section is in full colour.
Reproduction quality of
illustrations is quite superb, and the detail and
background to the listings is exhaustive. All cancels
are rated in 8 specific rarity classes - or "non-rated"
meaning they are reasonably to very common.
The book also rarity rates and
illustrates the earlier Victoria "Butterfly" and "Barred
Oval" cancels - also a very useful data base on its own.
EVERY dealer in the world should
own this book, and it goes without saying ALL collectors
of Victoria need to have one too.
Stumble across even one half
decent cancel in your entire lifetime, and it is more
than paid for.
The hard-bound Freeman/White
large A4 book comprises over 420 pages, with eight
colour plates.
Now
comes QUEENSLAND
Following on from that great work comes Bernie
Manning’s new QUEENSLAND opus.
Bernie had Hugh Freemans’s
active input into it, and follows a rather similar
style.
The great innovation in this
volume is the rarity ratings of the same cancels on
three distinct stamp issues –
Queensland Chalon Heads
Queensland sideface Queens
Australian Commonwealth
issues
This is most interesting, and
was one of the failings of the Freeman book – not
separately rating strikes on Commonwealth issues.
What this means is that a
numeral cancel that for instance might be very common on
sideface issues, is decidedly rare on Roos or KGV heads.
Find this cancel on a 1d Roo!
So as we can see nearby, a nice
strike of “93” on a sideface as illustrated is “C” =
Common. However on a earlier Chalon issue the same “93”
numeral is very scarce and rated “RRR” - and better
still on a Roo or KGV head it is rated “RRRRR”.
Did you know that before reading
it just now?
Value of the latter – several
$100s very easily. Cost of the book – HALF that – or
$A150.
Great new era breakdown.
Manning does the logical
breakdown for the FIRST time - rating the same number on
Chalons, side-faces and Commonwealth issues. Generally
giving wildly different ratings.
How much for this “713” Roo?
There
are lots of Commonwealth era stamps illustrated. The
“713” cancel on a common 1d roo shown nearby is worth
many $100s.
Likewise the common 1d red KGV head with the “783”
cancel illustrated nearby.
Manning rates both these 1d reds as “RRRRR” and either
would sell for several $100s. I can bet 99.99% of the
readers of this column would not look twice at them if
on an album page, or in a stockbook etc.
The
1d Roo “291” on the front cover of book has the same
rating. Again, who among would have looked twice at it
before this book was published?
A 10c stamp worth $300.
Any collector or dealer NOT
owning this new work is foolish. An otherwise 10c stamp
can be worth $300 or so IF you spot the good cancels.
I’ve sold a dozen or so books
already at $150 - and other dealers who stock
literature should also have stock.
“Queensland Numeral Cancels”
by Bernie Manning is wire spiral-bound, 257pp with a
loose insert of a massive fold-out facsimile of a 1906
Qld Railways map.
This brand new book is a vast
improvement on the coverage provided by Hugh Campbell in
his "Postal History of Queensland".
Bernie Manning has worked with a
number of other enthusiasts to access as much material
as possible to, in turn, ensure that both his coverage
and his rarity ratings are as accurate and reliable as
possible.
A new “Must Buy” Book
The book is extensively
illustrated entirely in colour, using the best available
strikes of the postmarks. This will greatly assist
collectors to identify any questionable markings.
Use of colour also means that
you would have to pay $250+ (and take hours) to copy the
book if you borrowed from a friend!!
Inclusion of the quite massive
railways map is a valuable bonus. It will assist
students to locate the numerous tiny settlements
scattered throughout the second-largest of the
Australian Colonies/States.
A great new release book. Large
A4 size, with great wire binding, so it stays FLAT when
working on your desk.
Just finding ONE off the very
many “RRRRR” and “NNS” listings here will more than
likely readily pay for it.
REAL Football
Being a Ballarat boy, and
growing up in South Australia, the one and only football
code to follow was Australian Football – or “Aussie
Rules”.
So each weekend I am glued to
all the games shown - not very easy if you need to do it
via free-to-air TV in Sydney, as some (indeed many)
games run until 2.30am.
Stampboards.com last year
decided to start an on-line AFL tipping weekly contest.
The same kind of thing as most larger offices have
here. However ours was truly global.
We had Brits, Americans,
Europeans, Kiwis, Asians and Canadians all adding their
selections each week. Not to mention lots of folks from
NSW and Queensland etc who were simply guessing.
Australia’s July 2008 issue
The 2008 winner was a member
called “clino” aka Peter Larson from Idaho USA.
Peter took the lead from round 6, was never headed, and
ended up with an impressive 124 points.
Second place went to
“Lakatoi4” – a NSW resident who also has never seen
an AFL game.
The results for 2009 were the
SAME 2 collectors - but in reverse, coming first
and 2nd respectively!
Despite competing with a bunch
of AFL football Aussies who live and breathe this stuff,
these two out-tipped them all for TWO years, and both
admit they have never even seen a game – not even on
television!
Ringmaster and chief cat-herder
was a member from Lara Victoria, “fromdownunder”
and Norm had the satisfaction of seeing his beloved
Geelong again romp in the season with a strong finish.
There were valuable prizes, and
good fun from all involved, and it really does show
knowing NOTHING about a sport is no hinderance to
accurate guesses!
New
Gibbons Catalogues
The backbone of the stamp collecting
hobby are the Stanley Gibbons Catalogues.
The new “Australia” book is
an absolute essential for anyone collecting or dealing in
this region.
This latest edition is in a new far
more sensible and smaller B5 size format, and this one I use
every day.
New
Edition is 272 colour pages
Now in full colour on bright white
paper.
It includes all the Colonial
(“State”) issues, and all the stamps of the Commonwealth of
Australia including the 1946 British Occupation Force
(Japan) overprints.
And all booklet issues – and dies,
inverted watermarks, and major plate varieties etc. And
prices for on-cover copies.
Then the Australian Antarctic
Territory, Christmas Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands,
Norfolk Island and the pre-independence Issues for Nauru (to
1968), New Guinea, Papua and Papua New Guinea, GRI/NWPI etc.
Prices are extensively revised with
many significant increases since the 4th edition. I sell
them for $A70, and all dealers should have it - and for 272
full colour pages that represents excellent value in my
view.
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I am a Dealer Member in Good
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