Australia Stamp Need Help With ID And Value

I have a couple hundred stamps I am looking to id. I have been through the Scott's books and various websites but am clearly not an expert on stamps and with so many variations and similarities I am just overwhelmed. I got this collection from my great grandmother. I will post pictures in bunches please help me to id these and let me know if there are any with any potential value over a couple of dollars. If there are ones that you would like a closer shot of, I will take a close up and will post in a new thread. I know of no easier way to do this. And can't seem to find a trust worthy stamp collector in my area. Thanks for your help!

Hello cholley, welcome!

These are Australia King George 5 side-faces or heads from 1913 to 1936 (different values issued on different dates in the series).

Search online for KGV under Australia and there are lots.

These are in pretty good condition, not perfect though, so not top catalogue dollar could be expected for them. Condition is everything. Same as selling a used car almost. Dings and dents devalue. Appearance (eye appeal) helps value.

These are the normal regular type stamps that they used billions of at the time so we are looking for any odd things about them to stand out and make a collector drool. So to speak.

These stamps have lots of possible odd errors caused by how they were printed at the time. Out in hot tin sheds mostly, so the ink ran or dried up or had bits of dirt and paper floating around in the air to dirty up the stamps and cause little missing colour splotches and extra blobs of ink here and there.

I am no expert on these and we really need better pics or scans are ideal to examine them online. I don't notice anything right off but that's just me.

These normal mail-a-latter stamps are only worth a dollar or two each in good shape with a nice cancel. Nut cancels can be a collector area too. Some (like me) pat more attention to the cancel han the stamp at times. Depends on what your collection or mini-collection or specialty is or you want it to be and you are attracted to certain cancels or how they appear on the stamps.

Catalogue price is NOT the price you would get when you sell them, unless they are near perfect stamps and in great condition. Cut the catalog price in half anyway for dropping the condition down a notch (like yours) and half again for stamps in worse off shape than yours.

But I have only a general catalogue. A specialized catalogue might show possible errors and list them and suggested prices (again for great condition).

I mean, I can look at a stamp and think, how much can I sell that for to someone? and if it is not much then I wouldn't offer anyone a big price to start with. learn about what makes a stamp worthwhile, a great cancellation, what kind of cancellation, how rare is that cancel, or perhaps there is something special about the stamp like printing errors of a recurring sort that happen on every printing plate or just on a few stamps or just one here and there, especially on these.

Remember, billions printed and used. Not millions or 15,000 but billions. No email or fax or telegraph or anything. So look for changes and differences. Get some of the same stamps or find pics online (a couple of good KGV threads are on SCF) and compare them to yours.

If selling, tell people about what makes your stamps special. I know it sounds hookey or something but not everyone knows.

Also you will find that even a cheap scanner makes 10 times better images than a camera, unless you have a high-end camera with "macro" settings.

If you do use a scanner, do about 4 rows of 4 stamps at a time, max, otherwise we get confused over what we've already seen and commented on.

Finally, don't use the entire 8x11 scanner glass as your scan area and crop away the excess - that leads to inferior results. Set your scan area only slightly larger than the stamps, maybe 5 x 5 inches, and use at least 300dpi, which can then be resized in Windows' Picture Manager down below our 100K limit.

So should I unhinge the stamps and scan them?? I do have a higher end camera, but don't know how to use all the features. I am cropping the pics I am up loading so that no stamps appear more than 1 time. Thanks!

Well, yes and no. Depends. I don't have a specialized catalogue or literature on all the plate varieties let alone the tin shed errors at all.

There are a couple guys on here that know their stuff on these stamps soa scan or two would be best for them. They are in Australia so the time difference is a factor of course. And what they are busy with other than this board also. But scan and post and be patient I say. It's always good to learn more about your stamps so you can get the best value for them but also so when collecting you can buy something that no one else recognizes to be a good thing and profit from your knowledge.

Or just to enjoy the ones you do have..

Cholley
Larger scans would be great to make it easier to ID them if possible.

My friend, a flat bed scanner would be better for stamp images. As we could increase the resolution to the maximum 1600 dpi (dots per inch. The bigger the image scan, the more the quality and details could be found. The size of the jpeg file would increase, but you could resize or resample using irfanview software.

Giving an advice is very easy, following it is very difficult, unless time permits.

warm wishes.