The Two Shades Of The Captain Cook 75c Stamp

The light Olive-Green was printed in 1966 and the Olive-Green was printed in November 1973. The purpose behind this was to cater for increased usage following the introduction of a 75c registration fee.

The Olive-Green was printed on a whiter paper than the light Olive-Green, and the UV reaction is orange-brown on the front and grey on the back.

The $1 painting definitive replaced the Captain Cook 75c on April 24, 1974.

Left: Light Olive-Green. Right: Olive-Green

Thanks Rob, the difference is quite noticable when they're side by side.

I've always thought the Navigators series was one of Australia's finest releases.

Hi Bobby De La Rue

Both Navigator series, pre-decimal and decimal is indeed one of Australia's finest designs of the QEII era.

Here is a set of pre-decimal navigators, minus the cream paper 10/- specimen (very difficult to find, I've been searching for one for the past 3½ years), and a set of decimal navigators.


They look impressive when placed together.

Rob

Very impressive indeed

There are other shades both in the pre-decimal and decimal series which are not in my collection, these shades have not been located but when any are located I'll add them to the collection.

Hi Rob,

This is visually stunning. Australian philatelic eye candy.

Just curious - are both listed in the Australian catalogs, and is one scarcer than the other?

Also, I read in some of your other threads that you have some varieties that are not listed in the catalogs. How then did you know that these varieties even existed?

Hi Prexie3c

The two 75 cent shades are common and they are both catalogued at the same value, and the catalogue I am referring to is the ACSC (Australian Commonwealth Specialists' Catalogue).


I'll try and not be confusing in answering your question. Yes I do have unlisted varieties and stamps (some of my unlisted issues will be in the soon-to-be-released KGVI edition of the ACSC), the reason why they are referred to as unlisted is because the stamps were discovered after the current ACSC catalogue was released, the ACSC also relies on collector contribution if the owner believes that they have found an unlisted stamp(s).

Many catalogues in Australia and overseas that cater for Australian stamps do not include varieties and those that do are only mentioned in a footnote.

There are other unlisted varieties and stamps, the rarer are sometimes found by chance, there was a case recently of a customer wanting to sell his stamps to the dealer I buy my stamps from; unbeknown to the owner he had a stamp in his collection that had an extremely rare status, it was said such a stamp existed but no-one had ever seen one.

That all changed when it was verified from the collection, the owner sold his collection to the dealer, the offer was too good to refuse (all other stamps in the collection had minimum worth).

Unlisted stamps are not always scarce to extremely rare, unlisted stamps can be common, and to obtain such unlisted stamps one needn't cash in their life insurance for. Many unlisted stamps will never make it into a catalogue because of their common status.

Rob