Stanley Gibbons Commonwealth And British Empire 1840 - 1952 Catalog Question

Does anyone happen to know what year the Stanley Gibbons Commonwealth and Empire 1840 - 1952 was first published with color illustrations? Thinking about picking up a used copy but want one with the color illustrations versus black and white.

If it helps I have the 1969 catalogue and that was black and white. The 2005 is in colour.

It runs to 1970, not 1952. I think SG started colour printing on or after 2000.

If you're at all interested in telegraph stamps then I'd recommend the 2013 edition or later.

SG have added more since but the the 2013 edition included the government telegraph stamps from many countries including Ceylon, India, Orange Free State etc.

My 1840-1952 Commonwealth and British Empire edition is from 2005 and is full technicolour.

I've lookup up an old posting of mine on the dates this catalogue has covered:

The SG "Part 1" catalogue (as it used to be called) covered all British Empire & Commonwealth stamps until the 2001 edition.

The 2002 to 2007 editions restricted the contents to stamps issued in the years 1840 to 1952 but since the 2008 edition the period has been extended to 1840 to 1970.

The later issues are included in SG's series of yellow Commonwealth
catalogues which cover all periods for groups of related countries.

Just to expand a little on the above post, the 1840-1970 issues are quite reasonable on Amazon or ebay.

Jack Kelley

I am thinking of buying an SG Commonwealth catalog but could someone tell me if it's more detailed than the Part 1 Simplified Stamps of the world catalogue which I already have?

If you mean the six-volume SofW, yes, there really is no comparison. SofW is designed to be a simplified catalogue that does not cover perfs, colour varieties etc etc.

Yes, that's the one I meant. One more question, if I may. Does the GB specialized include Commonwealth, in which case it might be best to just buy those...?

I picked up a 2015 copy off ebay for a decent price. There are buy it now listing but they are not selling at the prices listed.

I like the clean ready to read look (low gloss paper and whiter paper) compared to Scott. It appears to have a few more images than Scott and some printing details (like a KVI coarse paper history).

Commonwealth includes GB, but GB doesn't include Commonwealth. The GB specialised catalogues - QV, Kings etc - are VERY specialised at times.

Ok, so Commonwealth it is, then :)

Thank you!

This is an example page.

Hello. Wouldn"t like to open another thread and think that this is a good place for my question. I"m using MICHEL catalogue for european countries as its best for that area. Now thinking about buying Stanley Gibbons Commonwealth and empire 2018. edition. Is it worth buying at high prices? Its expensive. Are stamps value estimations in it close to realistic?

Stanley Gibbons catalogues are (or were) intended as price lists that reflect the retail selling prices one would pay when purchasing stamps directly from them.

In my experience realistic prices are around 25% to 30% of SG catalogue value, but this may differ from country to country. It is still however a very useful relative price guide in which case though it really isn't necessary to get the latest edition.

As a reference work however it is superb, with each subsequent edition including more material than the last. The changes from one edition to the next are usually to be found on the SG web site e.g here 2018 Commonwealth & British Empire Stamp Catalogue 1840-1970. Whether the changes are enough to warrant the additional cost of the 2018 over the 2017 or even 2106 editions, only you can tell.
Clive