Looking To Identify Some Old British Stamps

Hi! I just joined, and after reading sticky posts, forum rules and some of the many posts here I hope I'm posting in the right forum and within the rules

About 10 years ago I inherited a small stamp collection from my grandfather. Most of it is Norwegian stamps which supplemented my own -very amateur- collection, but a smaller portion is stamps from other countries such as Ethiopia and Great Britain. As I recently moved houses I spent some time looking at the collection again for the first time in a long time. In particular, the collection of British stamps caught my eye. They are all stamps from prior to 1905, and collected/bought in London during World War II. Although I am able to identify a fair number of the stamps, I am obviously not an expert and for sure unable to correctly identify many of them. An example page from the British collection:



Can anyone help me identify these stamps, and in particular the Six Pence-ones?

As you may be able to tell from the picture there's a value written under each stamp in the booklet they're in. That's an amateur stamp collector's (and friend of my grandfather's) price evaluation -in Norwegian kroner- back in 1953.

Hello TNFJ, and welcome to our group. Hang around ... you'll like it.

The 6 pence stamp has two similar designs in Scott. Design A26 has letters in the corners with a dark background (Scott 59 or 60). Design A28 has a white background (Scott 62 or 63). The plate numbers are in slightly different places. Design A26 has plate numbers in the lower area, just above the corner letters. Design A28 has plate numbers in the middle of each side.

All of your second row of stamps are Design A26 due to the black background of the corners. The plate numbers should be either 11 or 12. Here is mine with 12 in the corner. This is Scott 60.


This one is Scott 62 (Design A28) with Plate 13.


Color is VERY difficult to tell from simple scans. I would always assume you have the most common, unless viewed by an expert.

Prices in Scott 2017 Specialized are:

Scott 59, brown, Design A26, Plate 11: $55 used
Scott 60, gray, Design A26, Plate 12: $250 used
Scott 62, gray, Design A8, Plates 13-16: $70 used

I think all of yours fit into one of these. Get back to us with your thoughts.

Thank you both for the kind feedback! Partime; thanks a lot for a thorough reply! Based on your feedback it seems the example picture contains 4x Scott 59, 2x Scott 60 and 2x Scott 61. I originally had the idea that they might be from 1873 after searching through Stampworld.com's catalogue (https://www.stampworld.com/en/stamp...9?year=1873) and versions of the 6p mentioned there, but that just goes to show you how clueless I am at this point

I don't have access to a Scott catalogue, so forgive me for struggling a bit to find the right year/version etc. - I'll hopefully catch on after a while

I have pictures of the entire -small- collection now. If it's interesting, and it's certainly interesting for me to get your input, I can upload some more pictures in the coming days?

Almost all the stamps are in the 20 page book/leaflet where my original picture is from. There are however 2 separate sheets with stamps as well. Here's one of them:

Welcome Tnfj

From the scans, the Scott numbers are:


First scan

Top row: 64, 61, 60, 62, 62
Bottom Row: 60, 59a, 59, 59a, 59


Second scan

Top row: 26, 39, 42
2nd row: 34, 29, 45
3rd row: 51, 26, 26, 48
4th row: 34, 29, 34, 48
Bottom row: 44, 43, 32, 68

Hope this helps!

Awesome, thanks! I am uploading the rest of the images here. It's a decent amount all in all, but the same kind of help you guys have already given would be greatly appreciated! Any comments, specifics or other things you have to add is greatly appreciated as well

The other paper sheet:


Page 1 of the booklet:


Page 2 of the booklet:


Page 3 of the booklet:


Page 4 of the booklet:


Page 5 of the booklet:


Page 6 of the booklet:


Page 7 of the booklet:


Page 8 of the booklet is the image I shared in my original post.

Page 9 of the booklet:


Page 10 of the booklet:


Page 11 of the booklet:


Page 12 of the booklet:


I previously said that all the stamps are from the period before 1905; well here's the one clear exception to that - the 1937 coronation stamp! Page 13 of the booklet:


Page 14 of the booklet:


Page 15 of the booklet:


Page 16 of the booklet:


Page 17 of the booklet:


Page 18 of the booklet:


Page 19 of the booklet:


Page 20 (which is the last) of the booklet:


My apologies if this was way too many pictures in one reply! I debated whether to separate them further by several replies to the thread over the coming days, but concluded that just posting them all in one go now was the better choice.

Hi again

I'll focus just on the Queen Victoria stamps for now. As some are the same as stamps in the first two scans I'll omit those and concentrate on the others.

You'll notice that some stamps have large white letters and some have small white letters. Others have coloured letters and some have no letters at all.

All Scott numbers quoted are the cheapest shade and/or watermark.

Large white letters: 6d with hyphen Sc#45, 6d without hyphen Sc#51, 9d Sc#46, 10d Sc#47, 5 shillings (page 15) Sc#57

Coloured letters: 1d red imperf Sc#3, 1 shilling salmon Sc#87 , 1d red-brown (page 13) Sc#79, 3d & 6d overprints Sc# 94 & 95, 4d grey-brown Sc#84, 1.5d, 2d lilac (page 3) Sc#99 & 100, 3d lilac, 4d, 5d & 6d green (page 4) Sc#102, 103, 104 & 105, 2.5d claret (page 11) Sc#67, 2'6 (page 15) Sc#96, 10 shillings (page 15) Sc#109, 5 shillings (page 16) Sc#108, 1d (page 16) Sc#20, 4d green (page 10) Sc#70, 0.5d (page 20) Sc#58

No letters: 1d lilac - 14 dots in corners Sc#88, 16 dots in corners Sc#89, 0.5d green Sc#78, 0.5d blue Sc#98, 5d Sc#85, 1.5d red-brown (page 5) Sc#80, 2d (page 7) Sc#81, 2.5d, 4.5d & 9d (page 9) Sc#114, 117 & 120, 1 shilling (page 18) Sc#28

IR Overprints 1d lilac (page 20) Sc#O4, 6d (page 4) Sc#O6

There's also a 1 shilling telegraph stamp on page 18

Hope this helps, if I've missed any let me know