Need Info On Australia 1 Schilling Lyre Bird

I am new to this stamp collecting thing. But I have all these stamps from Albania, Australia, Austria, aden, angola, Algeria, Afganistan, Azores or Acores. Oh I also have these bank note stamps or maybe called revenue stamps. I also have stamps on postcards from the USA. I went to a local stamp dealer and he was very abrupt. Not helpful at all. I know nothing about any of these except the fact that they are old, have perforations and are cancelled. I do know you have to look up stuff in these books but don't know anything about where to find the books or what they are called. Can anyone help me. I do have these two stamps called 1 schilling Lyre Bird it said VFU 6946 green 1 1/2 Scott 25 Red 2 Scott 26. Can anyone help me please. I don't know if any of these are worth money and if they are how do you find out anything about these stamps. Thanks Kat.

Images will be useful, if you can post them.

Most libraries in the U.S. will have a set of the Scott catalogues of stamps. Usually in the reference section.

The first section is exceptionally useful as an overall introduction to stamps, and the countries are alphabetical, with the issues listed chronologically by country.

Kattinkiss, I think you're confusing your currencies. Austria used schillings; Australia used shillings - I remember them well.

We produced several green 1/- lyrebird stamps. Without a scan, it's difficult to know which one you have.

I can only take a picture of it. I don't have a printer to scan the stamps. I am looking at the stamp. It says Australia with a bird like a peacock. Green on each side it has a 1- at the bottom it says one shilling.

A photo from your cell phone will do , I guess you means this one, if it's a brand new 1932, it worth around $ 20 on street price ( I get one for way less ) , but the 1941 or any used not that much, only 1 or 2$

Hello Kattinkiss, welcome to Stamp Community.

You could take pictures of some of the stamps and show them on here. Any really expensive ones will be obvious to experienced collectors, or to specialists.

We all like pictures.

There are always cancellations or postmarks too. These, on a used stamp or cover, enhance the stamp for many and add value to the presentation.

Something is always worth something to someone, so recognizing value and having some basic sales ideas for ebay or anywhere, will help you realize what value may be had from your stamps, if you wish to sell them.

Collecting is addictive and can be consuming too. I went from used worldwide to specialized a few countries to one country to a special range of stamps from that one country to something nice from everywhere. Sigh. How to stap?


Another way to value stamps that you yourself cannot find is to post them under an appropriate topic title and wait for someone with some knowledge to pop around and offer their opinion.

But remember, their opinion is their opinion, maybe not the one that buys the stamps but who studies them.

ok thanks all for answering I will be sending pics via my phone just don't know how to post them on here. also that pic of the lyre is the one I have. I have two of them. Thanks for the help. Kat

there are two of the lyre birds I have.

The lyrebird is of the same zoological series as the kangaroo you have in another thread. There is an early version of this stamp that is larger. These stamps have the same perforations and watermarks as I described with the kangaroo. Do you have a perforation gauge? Watermark detector? Stamp tongs? What type of supplies do you have to go with your stamps?
Bill

Beautidul stamps, even I one colour.

There is a thread on here somewhere that talks about the error stamp that has missing mist or something.

Years ago I found these hard to come by myself.

Yes I have a gauge thingy I bought it the other day. Cheap $2.00. But not sure what I am looking for with the holes. And yes I did read something about the color somewhere. Should this have a watercolor. How do you know more about that color stuff? You guys are a big help Thanks. Kat.

You measure perforations by how many there are in 2cm. You could use a ruler, but it would be very imprecise for a beginner. A gauge lets you measure accurately to the half, quarter or tenth of a perf (depending on the particular gauge).

Some people like to measure to the middle of a tooth, while others measure to the middle of the "valley." I prefer the valley, myself. A magnifying glass can aid the measuring, even if your eyesight is good.

Some of the old gauges had various lines of black dots, and for those, you hold the stamp over the various lines until you find one that matches the gauge's dots with your stamp's holes. The line of dots that fits best is the perf measurement.

On page 2 of this thread:

https://goscf.com/t/42683&whichpage=2

wert has a picture of a perf gauge in action. Might be worth taking a look to see what he is doing there.

Worth noting you often have to check each side. If a stamp is perf 15x14 it means the top and bottom ar 15 and the sides are 14. You can actually run into instances where one side is different from all the others or all four sides are different. In those cases perf number will start at the top and move clockwise from there, i.e. 10x10x12x10.

so what does that mean one side is 15 and one side is 14, does that make it have more value?

In this case, if the top and bottom are perf 15 and the sides are perf 14, and the stamp has a watermark, the stamp is actually worth less (to just about worthless); if it doesn't have a watermark, it's not quite worthless.

Catalogues and collectors call them compound perforations. Most of the Linn's Refresher Course websites are pretty well done...here is one on perforations that might be useful for you:

http://www.linns.com/howto/usingper...rfgauge.aspx