Are These Penny Reds And 2p Blues Considered Decent Examples?

Hi all,

Spending time going through an inherited collection and came across these 3 penny reds and 2 2p blues. I am overwhelmed by all the in's and out's of identifying and classifying these stamps. I realize the pictures are not the best but I don't have a scanner. Is there enough here to have a bit of an idea of what I have here? I am not expecting great value as I can tell they are not the obvious holy grail plate 77 etc, but are they decent examples?

Thanks for any insight!

Decent examples.
Not the best possible, but not to be trashed.

Actually, you may have a plate 77 in there. Can't tell at first look. However, it would be a plate 77 of an earlier issue than the rare plate 77.

So, they issued imperforate 1d reds from about 175 different plates. You can plate them by looking at minute variations in the letters at the bottom and other little printing characteristics. To do so, you'll need a pretty deep reference library and a lot more talent for this kind of thing than I have.

They started perforating these stamps printed from the plates designed for imperforate stamps. On them the spacing was really tight and the images were not necessarily straight. First perforated are known as "Archer trials." When they worked, they started perforating them in earnest. These stamps have the little stars at the top (as do yours). Finding perfectly centered examples of "penny stars" is hard.

Later, they started printing with letters in all four corners. This issue has the "plate 77" rarity. You don't have any of this issue illustrated.

For the 2d blues, your imperforate example is pretty good. Four clear margins. Stamp is either from plate 3 or 4. (Plates 1 and 2 were used to print 2d blues without the white lines above and below the Queen's head. Like the reds, they then issued perforated stamps of the same design (up to plate 9, I believe). Then they started with the letters in all corner issue.

Hope you found this interesting, at least.

(now you can try to find ones with your initials in the corners, provided your initials fall between AA and TL)

I certainly did, great overview of something I personally find difficult,
great post. Thank you.

Your 2d Blue, looks like it had a numeral straight line duplex Postmark
(From 1854)
Possible Aberdeen, Scotland. (Numeral 1, 3-4-4-3)
Circa 1858

Also your Penny Red "A.D"

Definitely both Aberdeen Rod, well spotted!

The imperforate 2d blue also has a Scottish numeral postmark, looks like 131 for Edinburgh.

Phil

Nice catch Phil !

What about the Diamond Barred Poss 20? Ireland (Armagh)
Penny Red JK

Hi Rod,

How about 23 (Antrim)?

I believe 20 is Athy in County Kildare while Armagh is 8.

Here's a useful page for Antrim postmarks from the North of Ireland Philatelic Society:

http://www.cui.org.uk/NIPS/Antrim.html

Wow you are all such a wealth of intonation! Thanks to everyone, especially chipg... Very interesting to say the least! I will be looking to expand my knowledge on these for sure.

Thank you Nigel,
I'll have to re appraise my spreadsheet, find out where I am going wrong.

What an extraordinary Antrim research page..fabulous detailed work.