Tag Archives: Board of Trade

January 2, 2020 · 1:55 pm

November & December 2019 Ebay Report

There wasn’t much of note to write about which sold on eBay in November or December so I combined the two this time. I did find a few things at least!

Hot on the heels of my previous post, I came across three varieties of the Müllheim-Deutz-Köln local stamps, showing pairs of the 10pf, 40pf and 50pf with the “unfrankirt” overprint missing on one stamp. They are actually listed in the Michel specialised catalogue of local stamps, priced at around €20-30 if I remember correctly. They sold (on German eBay) for €18.50, €22.18 and €14.28 respectively.

Another bit of fun is this ½d vermilion with a rather unusual violet cancel depicting the Queen between “1837” and “1897”, presumably to commemorate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. I’ve never seen this before, and can only presume that it is a commercial cachet (of a company presumably in Bayswater) that would have been applied when the stamp was used on a receipt for revenue purposes. If anyone has more of a clue than me then I’d be pleased to hear!

This book, “British Army Postal Cancellations of the Anglo-Boer War 1899 to 1902” by Peter Prime looks like a valuable reference work for a Boer war collector. It’s missing from my library and if I hadn’t have missed it I would have bid more than the £15.80 it realised. I’ll save an eBay search for it so I get an alert the next time one comes up!

Bygones of Bridlington offered quite a few Jubilees with Board of Trade perfins. I still haven’t quite worked out how to identify genuine perfins from fake perfins yet. I have noticed certain cancellations which are consistently found on Board of Trade stamps, and often the perfins are inverted, reversed, inverted and reversed, and sometimes show missing pins. So if this stamp is the real deal then at £19.86 it wasn’t at all expensive.

Finally this slightly ugly cover with a 4½d Jubilee with washed colour sold for £56.70! Unusually, it was sent in 1911 from the British Post Office in Constantinople in British Levant. This stamp isn’t listed by SG as being used in British Levant, and the fact that it was sent to Oswald Marsh, the famous stamp dealer, suggests that it is a philatelic concoction. But it is only the second example I have seen (the other being sent in 1910).

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August 10, 2019 · 1:32 pm

June 2019 Ebay Report

Top 5 Items of the MonthIt’s the second month in a row that I’m kicking off my eBay report with an addition to my collection. I was very happy to pick up this Board of Trade perfin on a ½d vermilion on a Board of Trade cover for the opening bid of £99.99. Forgeries abound of the Board of Trade perfin so I’ve been aiming to get them on cover (or front when necessary) to significantly reduce the chances of buying a forgery. They are also still not listed in the Stanley Gibbons catalogue, so they are definitely undervalued and under-appreciated. From used stamps and the limited number of covers I have seen, there seem to a four or five different London cancels which are used consistently, and this London “89” district office duplex is certainly one you’ll find on genuine items.

The stamped-to-postal stationery envelopes come up reasonably frequently (on eBay and on my reports) and always sell well. There’s a correspondence of these covers that go to Canada and Grenada. This one’s a bit nicer because it has two 1887 1s greens. It sold for £84.05.

This attractive lower marginal block of 8 of the Niger Coast 5d unfortunately had no gum, hence it only sold for £69.Uprated Bechuanaland postal stationery cards are reasonably common but the vast majority are philatelic and sent to Germany. So this card to New Zealand is an attractive and proper usage. It was a good buy at £56. Whether the buyer, a dealer, can sell it on for their price tag of £225 is another matter…

And finally an Army Official ½d vermilion “Q” control pair. Another cheap buy for somebody at only £28.14. In my head they are worth £40-50 for a pair, but if you search eBay you will find dozens of them being offered by different dealers at £100+…

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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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