Top 5 Items of the Month
I’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.
So 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.
The 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.
This 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
And 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.
Darth Vader would surely say “I find your lack of knowledge disturbing” if he ever quizzed my on my expertise of the postal history of the Boer War. As an example, I don’t know what the code “3MB” stands for in the centre of this large circular datestamp, surrounded by “ARMY POST OFFICE / SOUTH AFRICA”. Perhaps Mobile Box? From my quick internet search and what images I’ve saved on my computer, I know there are several different codes and some with the town name in its place (Barberton, Komatipoort and Machadodorp, as well as Volksrust instead of South Africa). But what I do know is that it’s a nice piece to have bought for £82.09.
The 1887 Jubilee Issue 