Any Value On These Perhaps?

I am not so familiar with stamps from the USA and I know there are many varieties on old GW and others, so I was wondering if these few that I pulled out which look to be some of of the oldest ones I have happen to have any real collectible value?



Cheers for any input you might be kind enough to offer.

Marc

I keep putting all of 'em like that in envelopes and am waiting for a very, very long winter night.

Here are some considerations:
1. Color (is it pink or dark pink)?
2. Perf or Imperf
3. Then if Perf, what is it?
4. Coil?
5. Watermark and if so, which one?
6. Grill? And if so, which one?
6. Rotary/Flat or Offset printing
7. Different types of papers (to add insult to injury!)

It's unlikely that mere pictures will narrow those down - or perhaps narrow them down to 2, 3 or more possibilities.

However, I find narrowing them down to say 2 possibilities is almost more bothersome than not knowing at all!

Perhaps the two trickiest variables are the shades of color (after all the stamp is 100 years old - did it fade or not?) and then the different types of printing (rotary/flat/offset). The difference in printing type is often only a millimeter or so and once again these stamps are 100 years old and shrink and expand.

Don't mean to be a "negative nelly", but you're probably just going to have to roll up your sleeves and do all the various measurements, watermark tests, etc.

Here's a link that gives some idea of what's involved:

http://www.jamesdire.net/W-F.html

BTW, there is a lot of stuff on the Internet to help you out.

Haha, thanks so much Prince for such a good detailed answer. I think I am going to just throw them back in the drawer for a very long winter night as you suggested and where I live in SE Asia we don't get too many of those.

What I was wondering though is if any of those would happen to have some value, no matter which issue they might be? In other words are any of them possibly old and rare enough on the face of them to be worth something? If it comes down to only the rare varieties that are valuable then I probably will just put them on the side for now.

Cheers...

Marc

Great advice PA,
I'll be keeping that one.

I'm guessing - judging from the samples that the "expert" at the stamp show I went to showed me, that NONE of the above are "pink". I thought I had a pink - he called a carmine brown. go figure. Until I saw them, side by side... it was impossible to understand.

I guess there is a book of "color chips" for both stationary and stamps... I need to find a used version.

30 shades of red for the australian KG5

where did you get that stamp color chart!!

and are there more!!

Edwin, Here's one on E-Bay that covers all the colors for about $10.

Have no idea if it's any good or whatever. But there you are!

http://cgi.ebay.com/New-Wonder-Stam...em3ca4d5399e

I just got the Wonder Color Gauge. It is fair as far as it goes. The ideal situation would be to have each color "splotch" on a separate card so that you are not being influenced by adjacent colors. Even so, in my long years of being interested in colors, it is a difficult area.

To be expected since perception of color is highly subjective. I have toyed with the idea of cutting each small color area out and glueing it to a white card. Can't bring myself to do it because of the number of cards which would be involved.

Designed and produced by a member of a usegroup RCSD
about 5-7 years ago.
Unfortunately his name escapes me.
He did a bang up job.

Comparing shades on used stamps is fraught with danger, mint stamps with full gum should be the initial reference point IMHO.

Does anybody know what this is worth. Have a few others with postmarks form 1895 and 1895 and the same stamp. Sorry for the fuzzy image. Thanks for any help anyone can give me.

Welcome willc.
This appears to be a U72 stamped envelope (there are 3 versions, U70-72)
Price will be determined by the colour of the paper.
white - $12.50
amber - $25.00
oriental buff - $40.00
Other colours are blue, manila and amber manila, none of which appear to apply to your example.
These prices are for used cut squared from the 2012 Scott Specialized Catalogue
I'll let you decide what colour yours are.

better get some new glasses james... that cut square is much later and minimum value (sub cent)

the original stamps pictured are also all common varieties, sorry. The scans are good enough to positively identify all of them.

These type are from 1887-94 U305-U323 and/or 1899 U358-U370. U308 holds a nice value unused and used, but the identification is fun. The more valuable 2 cent type U308,U309 and U310 have bust points between 3rd and forth notches of inner oval and "G" of postage has no bar across the middle upwards stick. I hate stamps...j/k Keith