Category Archives: Ebay Reports

December 9, 2016 · 12:03 pm

September – November 2016 Ebay Report

Top 5 Items of the last 3 months…

I’m a bit behind on my blogging so I’ve decided to cheat and do three months in one. Hopefully I can find some items for the December report otherwise I’ll cheat again and edit this report to make it for the last four months…

355-25

The first item this month is a pane of the 4d green & brown. This is actually the scarcest of the settings for the 4d which shows the thin coloured lines at the right (as opposed to the filed-in bars). The retail price for Stanley Gibbons is £2’500 for such a pane, so the new owner of this item may well have got a bargain at £355.25, but since it wasn’t sold by a regular vendor of stamps I fear that it might not have been perfect. The colour of the green looks slightly faded in the image and no mention was made of the gum so that put me off bidding. But I should really have sent a question to the vendor…

446-00Next up is an impressive printing error on the ½d vermilion, caused by the corner of the sheet being folded over before printing resulting in a portion of the stamp being printed on the gummed side. They are not massively uncommon, and I always feel dealers ask too much for such items. So it was surprising to me that this sold for £446.

100-00This attractive franking also surprised me by fetching £100. These high franking combinations of stamped-to-order postal stationery uprated with Jubilees always seem to sell well.

4-32

My best ebay purchase of the Autumn season is a 2d that shows the variety “bottom right corner of tablet raised” (SG K30f), which catalogues £90 unmounted in my old 14th edition SG Specialised catalogue, and for which I paid the princely sum of £4.32. There are unnoticed catalogued varieties on stamps to be found on ebay, but it is a laborious task!

16-95

And we finish with this unusual combination of a late usage of a line engraved 1d red and a ½d vermilion which sold for £16.95.

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September 11, 2016 · 10:57 am

August 2016 Ebay Report

Top 5 Items of the Month

It was a bit of a struggle to find some interesting items this month, as it is every August as even philatelists stop thinking about stamps to enjoy the sunshine!

81.00mmThe first item is a scarcer control setting of the 1/2d vermilion with the letter B without marginal rule. For those that are interested, I have published the Stanley Gibbons catalogue listing for the 1/2d controls on my site, and I haven’t been told off for doing so yet… But at some point I will do my own more specialised listing and pricing as strips of three and blocks of six with controls command a premium.

50-63This piece with a 2 1/2d Jubilee was priced at £49.99 and found one bidder. It has a Union Steamship Co. perfin and is tied by a Santa Cruz, Tenerife cds. As you can guess from the perfin, this would have been posted on board a ship and cancelled in port at Tenerife which was permitted by UPU rules.

67.99This block of six 3d Jubilees realised £67.99 in spite of a few minor faults because it is cancelled by a Continental Night Mail cds of the Travelling Post Office. More information on this is another “To Do” for the “Related Info” section.

165.70And this duo of 10d Jubilees is tied to a small piece by a complete Royal Niger Company Akassa ds and fetched a solid £165.70.

15-90And bargain of the month goes to this Portuguese postal stationery card sent from Funchal on the island of Madeira and redirected from the UK to France with a 1/2d vermilion. Probably because it was hosted only on ebay.com and not ebay.co.uk, it sold for only $15.90.

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July 31, 2016 · 3:51 pm

July 2016 Ebay Report

Top 5 Items of the Month

68.00I’ve had more free time of late so I’ve been able to spend more of it looking through the eBay listings under Great Britain Victoria, Great Britain Covers and Great Britain Postal History in order to find some items for my collection.

The first is a stamp (for a change!) that I would have liked to add to my collection. As the 4 1/2d value was printed in 1892, it’s much more difficult to find with a SPECIMEN overprint than the stamps issued in 1887 (which are typically worth £15-40 each with the same type 9 overprint). Dealers tend to charge two to three times the realisation of £68.

18.85iSo back to postal history. Although having said that I’m sure that this postcard is of more interest to postcard collectors, which depicts the Snowdon Summit Hotel. I know little about the scarcity of postcards, but I imagine to the right person they would be willing to pay at least double the 18.85 it sold for.

138.95 colombian consul jerseyThe scarcity of postal stationery is something I probably know even less about. So I was a little shocked to see that this had sold for £138.95. The 1 1/2d die has been uprated with a 3d Jubilee to pay the 4 1/2d registered rate to Germany and was sent from the Colombian Consulate in Jersey. Although this sounds exotic, there seems to plenty of mail to have survived from this consulate and in fact I have the same franking on a cover sent to Fiji which I know I paid too much money for but it was so attractive.

21.95This cover was one I was annoyed to have missed because it’s a very uncommon usage of a single 4d: Sent to New Zealand at double the Empire rate of 1d and with 2d registration fee. I would have paid at least double the final price of £21.95

67.75And finally another stamp to finish of this month. This Mafeking 1s on 6d sold for £67.75. Decent value in my opinion, probably helped by the poor photograph taken by the vendor.

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June 30, 2016 · 9:04 pm

June 2016 Ebay Report

Top 5 Items of the Month

Thornton Pickard parcel label postal stationery uprated with 2d JubileeJune brought us some attractive and high value items (compared to the usual eBay offerings at least). First up was this advertising parcel post label from the Thorton-Pickard manufacturing company. Unusually it has a 6d stamped-to-order die and is also uprated with a 2d Jubilee. Although a little creased, it sold for a healthy £155.

1892 4 1-2d Used Block of Four 217.47The surprise result of the week was this 4 1/2d marginal block of four with a crisp central Darlington cds (which was against the regulations as each stamp should have been cancelled individually). The green is slightly washed, but that didn’t stop this multiple fetching £217.47!

Mafeking 1s on 6d SG.15 216.00The item of the month that I missed bidding on was this scarce Mafeking 1s on 6d (with serif overprint) tied to small piece. With a RPS certificate and a catalogue value of £850 in Stanley Gibbons, it only sold for £217. Doh!

122.70And to finish with we have a couple of incoming Boer War covers. The first with a 4d green & brown with “GONE – NO ADDRESS” handstamp struck on arrival in South Africa. It was then returned to the UK and a large “Officially Sealed” label of the Returned Letter Office was stuck on the reverse. It sold for £122.70.

Boer War Incoming Prisoner of War Cover 164.00And this cover was sent at the triple rate to a Prisoner of War in Pretoria. The cover was censored at the neutral United States Consul in Pretoria. Although the franking is a little tired, incoming mail to prisoners of war are very scarce, and this cover realised £164.

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June 6, 2016 · 8:11 pm

May 2016 Ebay Report

Top 5 Items of the Month

Taunton Cricket Ground cds 392.45Best buy in the month of May certainly goes to this unassuming 6d. With a Royal Philatelic Society saying that this stamp has a “Taunton / Cricket Ground” cds, I was expecting this to fetch around the £1’000 mark, so I was surprised to see it only fetch £392.45. You can view my attempted census of these cancellations here.

22.75Also a 6d of note was this example of a Board of Trade official perfin tied to a small piece. These stamps are scarce, and until they are listed by Stanley Gibbons, will remain relatively inexpensive. I picked this one up for £22.75 (as well as a 9d for a little less). Forgeries abound so I tend to pick them up only on cover (which is not inexpensive!), put the piece of paper and the hooded London cancellation are very typical of the genuine item, as are missing puncture holes, inverted perfins and reversed perfins.

$267This philatelic cover with the complete Oil Rivers Jubilee set isn’t particularly scarce, but it is an attractive addition to a collection and it fetched a strong price of $269 on ebay.com

90.88This slightly tatty cover (some would say well travelled) was sent at the 2 1/2d rate from London to Melbourne. However when it was redirected to Sydney, the 2 1/2d was no longer valid and the charge of a 2d postage due stamp was added (1d for the postage and 1d for the fine). I have seen very few and wasn’t surprised to see it sell for £90.88.

1897 Cover to Sark 44.00And finally, my “if only I had spotted it” cover of the month. Incoming mail to the island of Sark in the Channel Islands is rare, and if I, or perhaps a more fervent Channel Islands collector had seen it, it would have sold for much more than £44.00!

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May 24, 2016 · 6:33 pm

April 2016 Ebay Report

Top 5 Items of the Month

81.76April seemed to be a quiet month and didn’t bring any particularly interesting items but I’ve managed to find a few to write about.

First up is an attractive parcel post label sent registered from Ilfracombe with a reasonably high franking of 1s7d, which sold for £81.76.

27.25This Niger Coast Oil Rivers 1s green has a neat Benin River cds in red, but what is of more interest is the break in the first “R” of “RIVERS”. Whether it is constant or not I’m not sure. I’m currently a member of the GB Overprint Society, but have a backlog of journals to go through to glean more information on the overprints on Jubilee stamps. It sold for £27.25.

 

123.00This stamp was a bit of a surprise at how much it realised. Obviously the “TATI / BECHUANALAND” cancel is scarcer than I realised. It realised £123.

Another item of cancellation interest is the cover below with a machine cancellation. Not the scarcest type by any means, but it sold for a solid £35.65.

And finally only 1 bidder was interested in the cover at the bottom at£25.74. Sent underpaid by 1 1/2d, it was sent to Munich then redirected to Paris before being sent to Glasgow. The colours in the 1/2d vermilion are slightly faded which put me off, but a collectable item nonetheless.

35.6525.74 (1 bid)

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March 30, 2016 · 1:34 pm

March 2016 Ebay Report

1561.95 Halifax Cricket Ground cds on 1s green and carmineHappy Easter to those who celebrate it. Hope you’re enjoying your chocolate eggs!

I’m starting this month’s eBay report with probably one of the top items that will turn up on eBay this year. This 1s green & carmine has a very rare Halifax Cricket Ground cancellation. These cancels were used by reporters to submit their match reports to their office by telegraph and are highly sought after by cricket thematic collectors. As there are so few, I have started a database of known examples as an aside. This example sold for £1’561.95.

14.05Bargain of the week goes to this cover sent registered within Cornwall with a massive 1s3d franking plus the 2d for the registration envelope. Sent to a bank, this was obviously covering the insurance on cash being sent in the post. Not something very advisable to do these days. Obviously because it finished during the Bank Holiday weekend, it sold for a paltry 14.05.

143.01 mnhShowing how collectable marginal multiples are, this mint never hinged block of four of the 3d, showing “date cut” in the marginal line, sold for £143.01.

GB Used Abroad 1887 6d block used in SalonicaThis block of six of the 6d purple on rose was probably used to pay for a parcel and is cancelled by the British Post Office cancellation of Salonica, at the time, an office in British Levant and now Thessaloniki in Greece. Items from Salonica are more difficult to find than the other offices in the British Levant, so I wasn’t surprised that this sold for £130.99 plus postage.

And finally the only item I bought for my collection this month was this attractive cover sent to New Zealand and redirected to Australia with three different instruction handstamps including “UNCLAIMED AT MELBOURNE” and “NOT KNOWN BY LETTER CARRIERS MELBOURNE”. I was the only bidder at £19.99. The second best bargain of the month!

20.74

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February 29, 2016 · 1:34 pm

February 2016 Ebay Report

Top 5 Items of the Month

30.35After a lazy start to 2016 I’m going to try get back in to the rhythm of doing my monthly eBay reports. We’ll see how long it lasts…

First up is a scarce Qua-Iboe River cancel from Niger Coast on an overprinted 1/2d vermilion which sold for £30.35.

52.10 mnhNext up are two blocks featuring constant varieties listed in the Stanley Gibbons Specialised Volume 1, although neither were highlighted by the vendor. The 4 1/2d block shows the variety “broken bar to fraction” (SG K34h) which affects the fraction bar on the right “1/2” on the lower left stamp in this block. Catalogued at £90, it sold for a respectable £52.10 so a couple of people must have spotted it.

67.09However the variety featured on this block of 1 1/2d was a much better buy. The lower right stamp in the block shows the variety “retouch left of tablet and around large figure 1” (SG K29f) which catalogues at £600 for a mounted mint example. So I was rather happy to pick it up for £67.09.  Stanley Gibbons are currently offering a mint nh interpanneu block of 8 with this variety for £1’200! In fact if I hadn’t had been studying the catalogue the day bidding finished I probably would have missed it.

29.70 FebThis block of 12 6d Jubilees is a scarce used multiple, but what it more interesting is the cancellation. Without my references in front of me, I think that the “FPO / 43” cancellation was used during the Boer War. So even with the faults (some splitting and creasing), I think the right person would pay more than the £29.70 it realised.

93.78This attractive franking is on a printed envelope from the stamp dealer H. G. Hanson in Cardiff. Funnily enough I recognised this cover as I described it for a David Feldman SA auction and it sold a couple of years ago for €180. I don’t know if the buyer then was the same as the seller now, but it only sold for £93.78 this time.

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January 31, 2016 · 5:57 pm

November 2015 Ebay Report

Top 5 Items of the Month

37.78Yikes. Doesn’t time fly over Christmas… Back in November there was a few items that I would like to have added to my collection but managed to miss out on all of them for various reasons. First up is a Penny Postage Jubilee insert sent with a 1/2d vermilion and cancelled by the special South Kensington cds. Not only is it uncommon for the insert to have been used as a postcard, but the added interest here is the manuscript “Nature of a letter / 1d to pay”. I think a collector of Exhibition items would have been willing to pay more than the £37.78 it realised.

18.93iNext up is a cover sent during the Boer War with a 2d green and carmine tied by the Field Post Office British Army South Africa cds. It was sent to forwarding agents Holt & Co showing their cachet and redirected within the UK. A good buy at 18.93.

30.50Uprated newspaper wrappers and postcards with the Bechuanaland 1/2d are reasonably common, but nevertheless this attractive example sent from Ramoutsa only sold for £30.50.

The cover below is a scarce usage of the Board of Trade departmental perfin. Strangely still not listed by Stanley Gibbons, these official stamps are particularly difficult to find on complete cover as they were often used for printed matter resulting in fronts being more easily available. I was hoping that no one would notice the perfin from the thumbnail image but alas, it sold for £128.80.

128.80

And finally we have a quite scarce single franking of the 4d green and brown paying 2d internal postage and 2d registration fee. They are much more often seen paying the foreign letter rate to South America. It sold for £11.59.

11.59

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November 21, 2015 · 2:02 pm

October 2015 Ebay Report

Crikey. For the first time in over 4 years I’ve missed my monthly blog post completely.I mostly blame my hectic work period over the last two or three months, meaning I haven’t had much free time to scour eBay like usual. But even so, there seems to have been a dearth of interesting Jubilee material. Even going through items that have already sold, I didn’t find one thing I was disappointed to have missed out on.

Top 5 Items of the Month

105.41First up is this very clean strike of the Royal Niger Company Akassa boxed datestamp tying a pair of 1/2d vermilions to a piece. It sold for £105.41 which is a strong price considering a cover is probably worth £400 to £500.

25.46This cover from the Boer war is more interesting as the envelope has split and has been resealed by the post office in Edinburgh, which is not uncommon. However the most interesting thing, which unfortunately I only spotted when it was too late, that it was sealed by the PO using the selvedge from a pane of the 4d green & brown! It sold for £25.46

1.34Just to make sure that it’s not a clean sweep of 1/2d vermilion items, I have a bit of destination mail for you. Sold for a miserly 1.34, this cover to the Canary Islands was returned to England, and the reverse shows a Plymouth Ship Letter cds, a redirection mark, and a Canary Islands arrival. A much scarce destination than the price achieved.

And lastly, three covers with 1/2d vermilion controls, which sold for £25, £27 and £29 each. All from the same correspondence, usages of controls on cover are very scarce. Even though the condition of the covers are a bit grubby, this is still a very good price as they tend to retail between £75 and £100 each.

Jubilee controls on cover

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