Need Help With South Africa 1932-1961

Hi everyone,

I was researching the cancellation on some stamps and found this information online and this is what I have. Are they the same?

Any help would be appreciated, I have no knowledge about stamps, I recently inherited a stamp and coin collection from my uncle who passed.

Hello, and no. Your stamps are the standard overprints from Bechuanaland (rather than South Africa). They're usually collected in pairs like yours - one in English, one in Afrikaans. The key aspect of the strip you've found on the web is the overprinting in the stamp-edging beneath the stamps, which wouldn't ordinarily be there.

Hi there,

Thank you. I'm just learning so don't mind me asking, did you mean the cancellation mark the strip that's at the very bottom from the original?

Bicken, you keep talking about a "cancellation". You need to call that an overprint. Your stamps are not cancelled - they are mint ( unused ) and overprinted


Peter

What you have is a normal overprint. What is show in the first image is an error where the overprint was shifted down by the height of one stamp and its alleged L4500 value is for a pair with the extra overprint in the margin (bottom white piece)

Here is a good site for all things Bechuanaland:
It shows your variety and others.

https://www.bechuanalandphilately.c...e_Stamps.htm

pat

And one for South Africa
http://www.southafricacollector.com/

Some terms:
A cancellation is the mark (of some variety) that shows that a stamp has been used. Also sometimes called an "obliteration." An overprint is a word(s) or symbol used to convey information of some kind, usually found when a government wants to temporarily use the stamps of a predecessor. The stamps you show have an overprint.
In regards to your specific question, what you have is not the same. 1) your overprint is on the bottom half of the stamp, not the top. Read the description: "a spectacular Bechuanaland rarity of which only six could exist." And the seller has four of them in a vertical strip with selvage. You have two in a horizontal pair.
Philately is a hobby of details: watermarks, paper variety, small errors, color shades, perforations. These differences make all the difference in the world, philatelically speaking.

Ok I got it now. If it's been used, look for light cancellation and old stamps. Overprints haven't been used. So in terms of it being worth anything of value , would these be for example? They seem really old, no cancellation. I just randomly picked some. My uncle had quite a big collection. From different countries etc.

He had these in plastic so must be important?

Don't mind the questions, he literally has a huge collection so I will take my time and go through it. Would be cool if he had something rare and possibly life changing. I could definitely use that right now. Life isn't so great, so truly and sincerely thankful for what he left me.

No. In this case, the catalog value of that Hong Kong pair is about $8 if MNH (mint never hinged). Collectors are all over the place in their philosophies about storage and display, especially the further back in time you go. Often, a better way of determining a collections value or importance is how well organized it is, but this is also not foolproof by any means. My guess is, the seller has put this pair in the card for ease of sale/shipping, and your uncle just never removed them.


You're close, but not quite. A cancelation only shows that the stamp has been used. An overprint serves a different purpose. There are millions of stamps that were overprinted by a government and then are used for mail. One has nothing to do with the other.
Age is not a strong determinant of value. It's a part of the equation, but many other things matter: condition, the number originally issued, variety of paper/watermark, and a host of other things. There are stamps issued in the 1960's by the PRC, a single one of which may be worth more than everything you've inherited. In most cases, an unused stamp will be worth more than its identical-but-used cousin, but not always. Sometimes the used version is far more rare and worth far more.
All collecting hobbies share one rule: Do no harm; you're only a temporary caretaker. Most everything else is a guideline.

@ classic_paper thank you so much for explaining in detail! I understand it more now. Just basically have to do my due diligence, and it's determined by so many factors, but the ones I showed, in this instance, they are not original from when it was first released but just a re print basically.

He has a lot of these, literally boxes and yes I already googled that most are worthless but I came across this one and thought it's pretty cool for sure

You can look up "catalog values" for stamps like the Hong Kong you showed on stampworld.com .
You will need to know the continent and current country name (or use google) to find them.
Having some idea of the year range also helps. You can often use google on the stamp text to help with that, though.
When selling, people will sometimes set their asking price near "catalog value",
but often stamps sell (on ebay, hipstamp, etc.) for around 15% of catalog value.

You are correct, the "golden replica" stamps have a fairly low value.
But people do sell them by the binder on ebay - look at ebay Sold Items for the prices they sold for.
Sadly these originally cost your uncle about $5.50 per page, as a subscription program.
Now they might sell for 25c if you can find a buyer.