January 8, 2014 · 9:06 pm

December 2013 Ebay Report

Top 5 Items of the Month

83.74iSorry for the slow start to the New Year Ladies and Gentleman! Anyway, we kick off with my surprise of the month. This Washington Station parcel label caught my eye just because I’m from the Newcastle area and have slowly started to collect Newcastle and Gateshead postal history. The label bears a 3d purple on yellow with a beautiful “socked on the nose” (excuse my American) cancel of the Washington Station. Final price: £83.74! Obviously a scarce cancel for the Railway enthusiast. Unless there is a big market for all things Washington…

77.90Next item up is this attractive unmounted mint positional block of the 1/2d blue-green, showing the gutter margin and pin dot. Again the price realised was a pleasant surprise: £77.90. But it is an ideal item for an exhibition display to show the features of a sheet without having to display all 240 stamps.

8.10

 

 

 

This cover is interesting. It was sent in 1956! Deemed invalid for use, the postal worker placed crayon crosses around the stamp and applied “Contrary to regulations”, “TO PAY” and “5d” tax hs  as well as applying a 5d postage due. The last day of use for the Jubilee issue was supposed to be 1st January 1902.

28.95Although this may appear to be a cheap stamp with a great big crease through it, the interesting thing about this item is that it is cancelled by “FIELD POST OFFICE / BRITISH ARMY S. AFRICA” from the Boer War. I’ve seen very few Officials used in the Boer war, so one savvy bidder did well with the only bid of £28.

 

 

34.00And finally, this unmounted mint 2 1/2d purple on blue sold for £34. “Crazy money” I hear you scream. Well I was disappointed in myself for missing out on it. This stamp actually has a constant variety showing a dot just about the tail of the large “2”. This is the fourth example of this variety I have seen (all of which have been this year).

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December 16, 2013 · 10:20 am

Cricket Ground Cancellations

20131212092009286_0002aAn article in the January 2014 edition of Stamp & Coin Mart featured an article about the Cricket thematic collection of Richard Ley.

When asked: “Which item was most difficult to find?”, he replied:

“It is extremely difficult – and expensive – to track down the Queen Victoria line-engraved stamps cancelled at telegraph offices set up by the GPO to cater for reporters’ submissions to their newspapers in the days before telephones. About thirty different cancellations are known”.

The pair of 1s green and carmine show the “BIRMINGHAM / CRICKET GROUND” cds applied at Edgbaston during the Warwickshire match against Yorkshire in June 1901.

In my April 2013 Ebay Report, I showed a 4d green and brown with a “LEYTON CRICKET GROUND” cds which sold for £1’800.

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December 6, 2013 · 12:47 pm

November 2013 Ebay Report

Top 5 Items of the Month

42.00This month was a bit of a slow month for Jubilee items coming to the market. The most attractive item was this parcel label with an unusually high franking of 1s 4 1/2d which sold for £42.

86.33This piece bearing five 5d purple & blue is cancelled by the boxed ds of the Niger Company in Akassa. All the Niger Company cancels are listed by Stanley Gibbons and priced for each stamp. In this case the catalogue value is £100 for a single stamp. It sold for £86.33.

41.80This attractive maritime cover only received one bidder at £40…me! Featuring a block of four 1/2d vermilion and a single, they are cancelled by Glasgow cds, but also by a dotted lozenge with anchor. I’ve read something about these covers before being the work of a Captain with a philatelic eye. When I find the article I’ll be sure to post it here.

50.74This advertising cover is from Alfred Smith, a stamp dealer in Bath and profuse publisher of advertising envelopes. This is the first time I have seen this type (the most common ones being with the “New Address” overprint. There was only one bidder at £49.99 (not me this time).

41.75And finally this slightly soiled cover sold for £41.75 due to it’s scarce destination: Singapore!

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November 28, 2013 · 12:21 pm

Brasiliana 2013

Brasiliana-2013I was fortunate enough to travel with work to Brasiliana 2013, the international stamp exhibition in Rio de Janeiro. Although the show was a bit of disaster, in my free time (and there was a lot of it because there were so few visitors), I actually managed to find some nice Jubilee items in the exhibits.

 

Two exhibits Mafeking coverlisted immediately caught my eye. The first I headed for was “The Siege of Mafeking” by Antonio Cucchiani. The collection featured several rare covers with Jubilee frankings as well as an example of the double overprint on the 4d. The collection was awarded a Vermeil medal.

British Levant 2s6d on coverAnd the other was “The British Postal Service in the Levant, 1857-1923” by Alexios Papadopoulos. Jubilee items of note included three GB 1s green on a parcel label, one of only 3 known covers with the single ring cds of Salonica and the cover pictured adjacent which is one of only 3 recorded with the 12pi on 2s6d. Interestingly the collection did not contain a QV 4pi on 10d on cover. The collection was awarded a Large Vermeil.

2013-11-19 13.03.41Individual items of note included this 1/2d postal stationery card uprated with a 1/2d vermilion sent to Argentina and forwarded on arrival with an Argentinian stamp, which I just happened to spot in a collection of Argentinian postal history.

2013-11-20 15.42.07And this cover belonged to an exhibition entitled “Swedish Militaries & Volunteers in war, Campaigns or in active service abroad 1582-1905”. Certainly not an exhibition I would expect to find a Jubilee cover, but in fact this envelope was sent to a Swede attached to the 5th Dragoons in the British Field Army in South Africa, and had a long journey to try and find its addressee!

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November 14, 2013 · 3:24 pm

You Wait Ages For A Bus…

Jubilee Zemstvo Mixed Franking…and then four come along at once!! The cover shown is a rare mixed franking of a 1/2d vermilion and a Russian Zemstvo 1k violet imperf from Bogorodsk to pay the delivery or printed matter from the UK to Moscow, and then from Moscow to its final destination in the Bogorodsk distrcit. This is not the first Zemstvo and Jubilee combination cover I have seen. However the other two covers I spotted featured different Bogorodsk stamps. This brief tale begins in September, when David Feldman sold a near identical cover to this for €900. It continued yesterday in the USA, when Cherrystone sold another two near identical covers for $1’500 each! And now Cavendish have got in on the act, and are offering the example pictured with an estimate of £300 as part of the Seymour collection of newspaper wrappers in their December auction. It’s stated in the description that, aside from being one of Seymour’s favourite covers, that there are only three such covers known… So either the entire world supply has appeared on the market in the space of three months, or there are a few more than first thought. Either way, it’s still a very rare franking!

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November 5, 2013 · 11:01 pm

October 2013 Retails Items of the Month

Top 3 Items of the Month

79034_grandeWe start off this months retail highlights with a very important reference for every Jubilee collector. The Ernest Good Collection auction catalogue by Phillips on 3rd November 1988 is still one of the best collections of the Jubilee issue ever formed. Sold by Bill Barrell for £12.50.

13348520684b1e22ec08f83Next up is the cover which, as they say in the business, is full of character! This is normally the code word for scruffy, and it’s hard to deny it in this case, but look beyond that and you’ll find an extremely interesting cover. Sent to New Zealand, it was simply addressed to “J. M. Rainbow, Post Office, New Zealand”! What is equally amazing is that the New Zealand still tried their best to deliver it. With transit markings from Christchurch, Dunedin, Wellington, Invercargill and Timaru. Yours for £155 from Samwells.

1897 Prince of Wales Hosptial Fund coverAnd to finish with we have a scarce usage of the 1897 1s Prince Wales Hospital Fund label on cover with two 1/2d vermilions. For sale by Andrew Lajer for £165.

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November 3, 2013 · 10:15 pm

October 2013 Ebay Report

Top 5 Items of the Month

69.60Just covers for you this month. And we kick off with my biggest miss of the month. Not only is it a scarce cover sent by the Continental Night Mail service, but it is also the only example of a Jubilee cover going to Corsica that I ever seen!! It sold for a poultry £69.60. Doh!

8.95Although completely philatelic, since I hadn’t seen one before I thought it was of note to point out this item. The envelope is franked with a 1 1/2d and 2 1/2d Jubilee tied by the Guildhall Jubilee cancel, which isn’t too unusual. However this cancel is actually from the B.P.S Exhibition held at the Guildhall London 1966! Obviously didn’t go through the post but an interesting curio nevertheless. It sold for £8.95.

10.56Next up is this highly attractive printed cover sent by the Sun Fire Office as a reminder to the recipient to pay their premium. I expected it to fetch more than £10.56.

 

 

49.22This cover is a very attractive example of an Express cover with a pair of 1 1/2d Jubilees. More info about the Express post can be found in this article. It fetched £49.22.

83.86And finally a cover sent during the Boer war. More unusual however is that it was sent without stamps due to their unavailability. Most mail from the Boer war was addressed to England, but this item was actually intended for Switzerland and hence franked by the Post Office in London for the onward journey by three 1900 1/2d greens and a 1881 1d lilac. Obviously more uncommon than I realised as it sold for £83.86.

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October 15, 2013 · 8:28 pm

Argyll Etkin Sell Attractive Jubilees

1887 2d with speckled engine turned backgroundArgyll Etkin sold an attractive selection of colour trials as well as a rare essay in their auction on 4th October 2013. The sale featured not only many colour trials of the 1883-84 Lilac & Green issue (which were made in preparation for what became the Jubilee issue), but colour trials of the 2d duty plate, 4 1/2d duty plate colour trials and 10d., as well as some proofs, panes, inverted watermarks and covers.

However the highlight of the auction was lot 478, the 2d green and scarlet with the speckled engine-turned background on the duty tablet. This essay for the duty tablet was almost immediately rejected and most of the examples printed were destroyed, and was stated in the auction catalogue to be one of the rarest of all the Jubilee stamps. Catalogued at £12’500 by Stanley Gibbons, I wouldn’t be surprised if I saw this come up on their inventory in the near future. It sold for £6’000 plus 17% buyers premium.

My favourite item was probably lot 523, a very attractive advertising cover for Dalukola Tea which sold for £150 plus 17% commission

tea

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October 6, 2013 · 3:24 pm

September 2013 Ebay Report

Top 5 Items of the Month

77.75We start this month off with a curious item. The postcard was sent to Sir Chih-Chen Lofengluh, Envoy and Minister Plenipotentiary to London. The card, which depicts an image of the man was duly signed and returned in the post according to the message on the back. The sender was the infamous Reginald Bray, tester of the post office’s regulations and autograph hunter extraordinaire. Reginald Bray sent thousands of these to celebrities and politicians of the time, and the items are highly collectable. The vendor of the item didn’t know of it’s provenance, but the distinct style is obvious to those who know. Still, the item managed to fetch £77.50 despite not being described.

341.00Another month and another inverted watermark. This time a lightly used example of the 9d dull purple and blue which sold for £341.00. It is catalogued by SG at £2’500.

 

 

36.91This cover is actually my favourite item of the month (and now part of my collection!). Not only is it an unusual franking in having two stamped-to-order postal stationery dies and three Jubilee values, but it is a scarce destination as it was sent to Java in the Dutch Indies (an island in Indonesia). I think it was cheap at £36.91.

9.38Superb used examples with a central cds don’t come along too often, and I always try to snatch them up. This 1s green and carmine is one of the best I’ve seen on eBay, but only sold for £9.38 (also now part of my collection!). This must have been due to the small image supplied by the vendor and the ever so slightly faded green (which is barely noticeable in the flesh).

29.10And finally we have the 1/2d vermilion paying the late fee on a cover with a nice boxed “LATE FEE / PAID” handstamp. There are many different types of Late Fee handstamp to be found. This on one cover sold for £29.10.

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September 29, 2013 · 4:50 pm

NEW FEATURE: September 2013 Retail Items of the Month

Top 3 Items of the Month

Since there has been several interesting, rare and spectacular Jubilee items appear on the market in the last few weeks, I thought I would start this new feature. I hope the items featured here in the upcoming months will compliment the established eBay feature with items that are too prestigious to have featured on the online marketplace.

Ogilvie & Moore. Cork underprintFirst up is a new discovery by the family of an ex-employee of Stanley Gibbons. It’s a ½d vermilion with violet “Ogilvie & Moore. Cork” underprint, previously only recorded on the 1d lilac, but soon to be included in the next Specialised Vol.1 catalogue. Unfortunately Stanley Gibbons had already sold the only two singles by the time I had contacted them, but they are currently offering this block for £2’750.

The next two items are being offered by Andrew Lajer in his Autumn 2013 list. The first is a 5d purple and blue with a FIRST DAY OF ISSUE cancel! This is the first single that I have seen (although I have also recorded one cover which was sold by Stanley Gibbons for £3’000 roughly 3 years ago). Sold for £550.

HMOW cert prs £950 andrew lajer

The final item is a very rare example of the Office of Works “H. M. O. W” perfin on a pair of ½d vermilions cancelled in Liverpool. It does have some faults (horizontal crease, a few short perfs and virtually separated), importantly it has an RPS certificate. The asking price is £950.

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