Catalogue And Market Values Of The Watermark Varieties Of Australian Colonies

Hello,

as we talked a lot about watermark orientation in the colonies here the last weeks and have some new research threads open, I spent more time in learning about them. I now own the SG Australia and an ACSC Kangaroos+Early Period 2004 catalogue.

In the period 1901-12 (already Commonwealth but still colonies' stamps) some changes are made, for example concerning the printers and the standardization. Also, the situation about the watermarks seems to be a bit more clear than before.

SG Australia writes about the colonies' watermarks that the printers did not care much about the watermark orientation. This is the reason why research is difficult but still possible, as we see here at SCF. But SG does normally not list any watermark orientation varieties from that time.

For the period from 1901, the ACSC lists watermark orientation varieties for all stamps they are aware of. This is really useful.

But I did not really understand the values of them.

Of course, for a stamp that appears very often with watermark inverted, e.g., the value of this variety is not much different from the normal orientation. In opposite, a stamp which is rare in a certain orientation, is more valuable, for example South Australia SG 268a. For perforation varieties, this is true as well.

But in ACSC there are stamps listed that are very rare but have not that value. For example, the Victoria 1901 5d stamp (brown), ACSC V90-A-aa, has the variety watermark reversed, value 750$. The notes says that there is 1 (one) stamp known. Other examples in the ACSC show similar prices, e.g. NSW ACSC N14aa.

So I wonder, what made this value. As there is only one stamp, it must have been an auction result some time ago. If I was a rich collector of Australian colonies, I would pay more than 750$ for a stamp that only exists in one piece all over the world.

As the catalogue is from 2004 and more than 10 years old, the prices could have been higher today, but Brusden White did not publish a new edition saying that the old edition is still valid enough.

The mentioned SG 268a probably does not exist in one stamp only, but has a much higher value, and it's sideways. Is it perhaps the "reversed" variety that make the catalogue value of a unique stamp that low? Is the "value-chain" perhaps:
1 normal 2 reversed 3 inverted(/+reversed) 4 sideways(/+reversed)
in terms of value?

(PS: I know that it's all about supply and demand, but I stil have the questions above)

This is probably where the dollar value comes from. Or maybe a private treaty sale?

Catalogue value is very difficult for such rarities and may well have been based on past auction sales for the same or similar items.

Past sales means nothing, of course, if in the future there are two wealthy bidders keen to add a rarity to their collection - the sky's the limit.

Thank you both. Yes, of course such a stamp always get high bidding at auctions, as it is unique. I just wondered if anybody has more background about those stamps that appear in this watermark orientaion onl in 1 or less than 5 stamps. Those 2 examples are not the only ones in the ACSC, there are others, and all appear to have the same value. So if I summarize, a stamp with a watermark variety and 1 or 2 stamps known is about 750$, if there are up to 5 stamps known it's 400-500$. This is listed quite evenly all over the ACSC of the early period from 1901. So it's not a single exception. I wonder if the stamps listed are either faulty or have been sold many many years ago. Could this be true? Or what would you expect as a value for a watermark variety that only exists in 1 copy in the world? As said above, if money would not be important, I think I would pay more than some hundreds of $ for it, or what would be a price that you would expect if you were offering it?