What Was In Your Mailbox Today??

As a collector of GB and Ireland stamps, I had very little use for the Commonwealth & British Empire catalogues. Having added overprints to my collection over the last years, I considered picking up a British Empire catalogue. The Wildings will not be listed, but I am fine with that.

I found a copy of the 2007 edition for £ 9.57 plus £ 5.22 postage. It is in pretty good shape. At first glance, there is some good information on the overprints. As an added bonus, I can look for some more information on Commonwealth stamps outside my scope.

I've gone as far as I can go with individual stamps for my Great Britain collection, and there are a few that I've resigned myself to the fact that I will never own them, but now I'm trying to get as many different Queen Victoria stamps on cover as I can. Here's my latest acquisition, the nine pence dull purple and blue from the "Jubilee" issue of 1887. This set, except for the lowest value, the halfpenny stamp included the first bicolored stamps ever issued by Great Britain. The nine penny stamp is rather elusive on cover, this was the first one I've seen and I got it for a pretty good price.

That is a question of perspective.

In 1883, the GPO issued two stamps printed in lilac with the value printed in carmine. Even Stanley Gibbons calls these surcharges. They, however, are anything but surcharged,.The value was not changed from that of the original design, so it is no surcharge.

The current stamps had their values expressed in words. The print was too small for the bad lighting conditions of the time and literacy was not widespread. It was decided to issue a series of stamps using existing designs (and plates) in a different, lilac colour. They would also have the value printed in a large bold typeface. The intention was to print the number in black. Because that would clash with the cancellation, the value was printed in carmine. Eventually, only two of the intended values were issued.

The stamps were also not overprinted on existing stamps. The basic design was in lilac only used for this issue. They were printed as issued. They had two colours.

They are not bi-coloured stamps from a head and a duty plate. In that respect the 'Jubilee' issue is the first bi-coloured issue. The 'Unified' issue, however, used two colours of ink, making them bi-coloured, and was issued four years earlier.




Originally, the highest value stamp, the shilling, also was printed in one colour. It was substituted for by a bi-coloured issue in 1900.

Very nice cover, by the way.

Thanks, NSK for all of that information on the "surcharges". I've always wondered why the Post Office did that, it didn't seem to make any monetary sense to overprint stamps without altering the value, but it does make sense when you see how small the words are, and I also wondered why they were printed in different colours than the original stamps

The reason for using lilac is due to the unification of postage and revenue stamps. Until 1881, postage stamps were only valid for postage. The post office was afraid of chemical cleaning of the cancellation. It used fugitive inks. The inland revenue required stamps printed in double-fugitive inks. Not only chemical cleaning, but also cleaning with water should cause the ink to run and make the stamp invalid for use.

In the 1880s, only the pigments for green and lilac were double fugitive. This is why the 'unified' stamps of the 1880s come mostly in those colours ('Penny Lilac' - with dots in all four corners -, 'Surcharged,' and 'Lilac and Green.') Also, the 'Jubilee' issue - not named for commemorating the jubilee, but for first appearing in the jubilee year - has many values that use lilac / purple, or green.

Edit: De La Rue had created a series of 'Surcharges' for the 1/2d, 1d, 1 1/2d, 2d, 2 1/2d, 3d, 4d, 5d, 6d, and 1/- values. The 1/- (issued in-orange brown, in 1881) from plate 14 also has been found printed in purple. It was destined to be used for this series, but it never was overprinted and issued.

Yesterday I got my USPS Charles Schulz stamps.
I've been doing the Snoopy Happy Dance!

Received an email notification that a postal bid I placed on a 1896-1964 mint Belgium collection was successful. Won't be seeing it until I get back from a week's break but it will soften the post holiday blues

Today, this envelope arrived. It was posted in France a couple of days ago. Unfortunately, the stamps have not been cancelled. They are denominated in Francs, a currency that was superseded by the Euro in 2002. The left stamp only has the value in Francs, the others have the values both in Francs and Euro. Stamps in the old currency remain valid for postage.

A cover (not full letter) from 1791 that I find very interesting. The sender and recipient are both in the Canadian history books. I won't try to repeat much info but there is a lot on Google to dig up. The sender is Theodore de Pincier. He fought for the British side in the Revolution. Later became a frontier surveyor. The recpieint was John Collins, a government official who was involved with buying land and creating treaties, etc. In 1791 we had just been split into Upper and Lower Canada, and laying out proper surveys and creating maps was extremely important to say the least...


There is a Montreal stamp on the back. I wish the letter was intact. At the time de Pincier was complaing about not being paid enough. I have found maps online that have his handwriting, but they are in French. The paper also has an incredible watermark that I will take a closer look at. It was probably made in England under George III.

(Yesterday) My print copy of Canadian Stamp News

Last week I found and bought a very nice RPPC of the newest (for the area) method for moving logs out of the woods, very similar to how it is still done today in some places. The card also shows the local topography quite well.
However, said lovely card arrived in an almost impenetrable envelope, taped around every seam, I finally gave up and broke out the Schrade "Old Timer", about 10 minutes later I got the blade point into the form fitted cover. Whew! Finally got the card and sleeve out of its prison, only to find that the seller has taped the sleeve closed! Used the really stick stuff too! Destroyed the sleeve trying to remove the tape. Thanks Elaine!! (the seller), you know that I count that sleeve as part of your 'dealer's prep and handling' but pray that you don't put any tape near it? Thanks, Enough ranting.
The prison and its card;

Dealers that package covers so securely that you have to use everything up to and including a Sawzall are a pox on the hobby.

I received this very nice British postal card, one of a few postal stationery items issued to publicize the British Empire Exhibitions of 1924 and 1925, along with the much more well known postage stamps. I didn't notice this until I was mounting it in my collection, that it has the actual name of the country- Great Britain- on it. GB is famous for never having printed its own name on postage stamp, a right it holds to this day, but looking back a few years I noticed that several other postal stationery items also included the name: a few of the earlier ones said Great Britain and Ireland, which of course was part of the UK before Ireland achieved independence in 1922.

Received a copy of Narumi's Japanese Revenue Stamp Catalogue (2019), thanks to Rod222 (Western Australia).

Across the past three years Rod222 has become a good philatelic friend and a valued trading partner.