Great Britain 19th Century Help With Collection

I collect mainly used 19th century US classics and not Great Britain so excuse my lack of knowledge.

But here are some better stamps (I think) that I pulled out of a very old collection. These were some of the nicer and more valuable ones per Scott. I will post a few more images later.

After reading some threads on this forum, I have come to the conclusion that Great Britain stamps have really gone down in value - generally you can get them for 10-25% of Scott value or less. (whats the purpose of scott catalog values?)

Regardless, I know there are some real good experts in these stamps on this forum and I was wondering if they could evaluate these stamps and let me know if anything interesting, valuable or this is just common stuff. I'm considering building a collection off of this start.



in order:

Scott 1 1p black (260$) sound
Scott 4 2p blue (80$) on blue paper, sound and perhaps the nicest of all the stamps here
Scott 23 4p rose (700$) off centered
scott 28 1sh green (290$) not sound and messy
scott 48 1sh green (175$) vf centering?, heavy cancel
Scott 53 10p red brown (300$)
Scott 57 5sh rose (975$) PLATE 2! off centered
Scott 58 1/2p rose -- is this plate 9 as it was written above the stamp that way in album? I can't tell. plate 9 is 700$, much less if other plates. condition issues regardless.

Scott 60 6p gray (225$) barely cancelled upper right, off center
Scott 62 6p gray PLATE 17! (110$) well centered

more:




Scott 81 (90$)
Scott 94 (140$)
scott 99 (40$)
Scott 100 (75$)
Scott 102 (100$)
Scott 103 (200$)

last one:






scott 104 (200$)--- sound but off center
scott 105 (225$)-- sound. Nice stamp!
scott 108 (210$)-- obvious perf issues top
scott 109 (525$)-- tiny tear upper right

All help or comments much appreciated!

On the 1/2d rose, you should be able to see the plate number on the stamp itself, unless the cancellation blots it out.

I won't get into specifics, but I agree that you have some high CV stamps there. You have already mentioned the faults, the messiness, and some heavy cancels, so again I agree that you are looking at probably the low end of CV.

From a 1840-1940 WW collector perspective, a general comment about collecting early GB..

It is tougher (compared to most other countries) to find nicely cancelled stamps in VF condition.

Is that a "9" on the right side or a "0" just west of the hair tail. There is no plate "0" listed in scott. Am I missing something? Am I looking at right area?

Hi,

You have overlooked the "1" of "10".

Ouch . I see it now!

Very nice....thanks for sharing......I luv and have GB stamps which is historically the base of our Country.
My penny one sits there, and it is history mostly as the value changes since the 60s when my father gave it to me.

I sell similar stamps like these on covers check my ebay shop for examples the penny blacks on cover go less than $200, loose 1d blacks like yours you can get in auctions under $100. In any case it is a very popular area to collect Queen Victoria Great Britain stamps on or off covers, for sure worth your time building a collection. The beauty of covers is you can house them in photo albums and see where they came from and went to, postmarks etc

and here is a link to one of my penny blacks to show you
http://www.ebay.com/itm/WOW-QV-COVE...STRK:MESE:IT

What has happened to the penny blacks? I'm a US collector and see US Scott 1 1847 5c red browns selling regularly on ebay at 100-200$ for stamps in VG to f-VF condition. Sky is the limit after that depending on centering, with VF stamps generally in the 200-300$ range and XF copies in the 600-1000$ range. Not to start a a competition between the value of a penny black vs. US scott 1: But which is more sought after, which is more valuable, and which sells easier/faster? My father, a worldwide stamp collector, always respected the penny black ("oldest stamp") as not only the 1st stamp of Great Britain, but perhaps the most paramount/ exemplary stamp for anyone collecting worldwide! In other words, a penny black is an absolute must in any 19th century worldwide collection, not just GB collection.

The basic 1d black isn't a rare stamp, and I suspect buyers have become more and more selective over the years. As far as I know, good copies with four margins will go for three figures - with a premium for the scarcer plates, particular cancels etc. Perhaps scotzm will weigh in ...

Over 85 million copies of the Penny Black were printed, compared to 3.6 million for the 1847 5c Franklin. I have no hard evidence but suspect that demand for the Penny Black exists broadly whereas the 5c Franklin is of interest mainly to Americans. In any case there are plenty of either one to meet demand, so the main factor in price is condition. My personal opinion is that it is easier to sell a Penny Black, but it will command a lower price than a 5c Franklin in the same condition.

You refer to VG to F-VF "condition". VG, F and VF refer to centering, not condition.

Wow… 85 million versus 3.6 million. I wouldn't have guessed that ratio. Yes, I was referring to centering, not condition, with VG, F, VF, XF. My pricing estimates for a 1847 5c Franklin assume a "sound" used stamp.

cj

I think there are differences in nomenclature, which are relevant in discussing GB stamps. A "fine used" 1d black here would refer to the whole stamp, not just, or even particularly, the centring. As far as I know, descriptions in Europe limit themselves to "well-centred" or "very well-centred", whilst those for imperforated stamps would refer to four "very large", "large" etc margins. Which means imperf blocks may be safer!

Geoff