Evaluation Of My Penny Black

I recently acquired a Penny Black. I read many resources on it, but still am not sure which plate my stamp would be from. Note the bottom corners have the same letter. Then, the top seems to ha be been cut short. Does that affect its value greatly? Thank you!

Treina JA

I'm afraid I cannot help with the plating, but since you asked about condition and value:

I hope you didn't pay too much for it. Between it being cut so far into the design at top and left, and the major thinning across a large portion of the stamp, I doubt that it is worth even 2% of catalog value.

Given the penny blacks you can purchase out there for US$20-50, I'd be hard pressed to purchase it at all. It just has too many negative aspects to it and there are much nicer examples available (at least aesthetically) for not much more.

I'm sorry for being the bearer of bad tidings.

No I didnt pay too much for it. I'll work on a better stamp when I get the chance. Thank you for your input. I figured that might be the case.

Treina JA

Hi Treina

You may wish to look at this link for plating penny blacks, I had a quick look and it could be plate 7?

http://philatelics.org/~allan/shrop...s/page1.html

Its easy to use

Have fun

Andrew

Thanks Andrew I'll look

I think it might be plate 5. The left "H" has a distinct cant to the left. So does the one on plate 5. While not perfect, this site has scans of the Nissen reconstructions available for viewing and comparing to any penny black you might have: https://spink.com/private-treaty/ni...onstructions

As for value - sorry, minimal. Not even a "zero margin" copy, it's missing a fair amount of the design at the top.

Treina - Hello. Ideally, you should look for an example with four clear margins around the design, whereas this doesn't have any. But I hope it fills a space until a better one comes along.

Yeah Geoff
It feels like the best ones are already taken. Thanks again guys

T

Don't you believe it - there are thousands around!

Geoff,

Doesn't the H H mean eighth stamp over from the left and eighth stamp down from the top?

Jack Kelley

Yes

AA.......AL
BA.......BL
....etc...
SA.......SL
TA.......TL

I can't say as I see many clean copies going in the $20 to $50 range. It seems that a full 4 margin one without any major faults will be $100+. At least, I keep losing out on those auctions on the lower end of the scale.

I think that's right. Assuming not a scarcer plate, four margins would be around £100 or so here, but declining substantially for others. Why not buy forty?

http://www.warwickandwarwick.com/au...logue/172195

Well, for that estimated price one could make a nice profit breaking up that collection.

Probably not much to be squeezed out, once you add the buyer's premium. There were actually some much more impressive stamps in the previous auction

http://www.warwickandwarwick.com/au...ns/archived#

Don't feel bad about having a space filler. It's nice to have the first postage stamp. When you learn to be comfortable plating your stamps, you might find that your next, nicer Penny Black is a different plate, and thus, not a replacement for this one.

I have a few nice Penny Blacks of various plates, and several more of varying quality, but all together, they would make a nice display to show different plates.

Here in middle America, a four-margin PB at a show can probably be picked up for $75 to $100, and (at least in my experience) fewer than half of them will be identified by plate.