Just Bought 220 Penny Reds

I don't really know what I bought. Based on the sellers descriptions, they should offer me hours of pleasure of studying them. If these create some interest in my philatelic pursuit, I might just start collecting GB classics.

First step, identify them by plate number. Second step - flyspeck for plate errors. Third step, evaluate cancels. Fourth step, nap.

Edit: Not necessarily in that order.

smauggie: can you recommend a specialized book on the penny blacks and reds?

I recommend the Stanley Gibbons Great Britain Specialized Catalog Vol 1 : Queen Victoria

Neither Regency Superior or Stanley Gibbons seem to have them in stock. They can be acquired via a number of sources (ebay, Amazon and other booksellers).

The newest edition goes for about $65-75. An older edition sufficed for my own studies for which I think I paid $13 plus shipping.

There are extensive plating guides online for the penny black and penny red stamps.

There are some links on some other forum posts here on SCF. I will see if I can find them.

Edit: There is also the Mulready Yahoo Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mulready/
They specialize in Queen Victoria stamps. They are the best resource I have found for questions about these stamps.

Wow! I'm impressed!

If you really want to get serious about this issue, you might also want to try out the series of books published by the Great Britain Philatelic Society. They come in several volumes and are simply titled "The Plating Of the Penny Red 1840 - 1864"

http://www.gbps.org.uk/publications/books/

Hope this helps?

Chimo

Bujutsu

Have fun!

Lots and lots of fun ahead of you. Fly-specking may identify something interesting, so I hope that your eyes are up to the task.

Who knows, may be a plate #77 among those

Not too many chances for a plate #77 as I only see a few labeled Scott #3. However, I see a whole bunch labeled Scott 20b, so I hope at least a few of those are correct. Looks like a lot of fun sorting through that batch.

Wow that's quite the score! Congrats!

The penny reds with letters in all 4 corners are fairly easy to plate since the plate number is in the design of the stamp. Some factors, such as heavy cancellation may obscure, may make it hard, but usually not.

The penny reds with stars in the upper corners are a different animal though. Plating them requires very specialized references.

Here is are a couple of general online resources:

http://pennyreds.tripod.com/character.html

http://www.pennyreds.co.uk/

Here is a website relating to Re-entries. Re-entries are corrections made to the design on the metal plate which can be detected as a difference from the normal design. The specialized catalog may not cover all possible re-entries especially as more are discovered on a regular basis.

This is a link to his index page for the British Commonwealth. If you look under Great Britain, there is a page dedicated to the imperf penny red re-entries and one dedicated to the perforated penny red re-entries.

http://www.re-entries.com/listings.html#bc

Here is a plating guide for only two plate numbers, Plates 22 and 23 (imperf) Penny Reds.

http://www.philatelicsannex.org/ref...3-guide.html br /

Overwhelmed yet?

Edit: A couple more links.

An introduction to the Penny Black and Penny Red

http://www.kernunnos.com/Philately/GBQVLE.html

Here is a link regarding possible shades (some of which, if correctly identified can bring a significant premium)

http://www.home.earthlink.net/~penn...shades1.html

Here is a fun philatelic exhibit regarding line-engraved stamps.

http://www.rfrajola.com/gbrf/gbrf.htm

Wow, Smauggie, thanks a million for you valuable assistance. You make my life easier, philatelically speaking. There is a H R Harmer auction coming up next month. I intend to attend this one. There are quite a few Penny Black lots and I may want to procure. Wish me good luck.

This is not an area I can afford to study in depth, but I think every philatelist has the deep fascination for the first stamp issues of the world as I do.

I would like, as you begin to identify your early Great Britain stamps, to invite you to share your work here with us, with close-ups of stamps their information.

I would get much enjoyment from it and I suspect others would as well.

Smauggie