Can You Help Guide Me On These Stamps - UK And German? From A New Surprise Lot

Hi Stamp Family,

I have been sorting through a mixed "surprise" lot :) which I love to do. I have quite a few that are stumping me. Could you guide me on these? I have a Scott specialized catalogue through 1940 only and a US specialized...

Thanks all.

Left to right they are (with the Scott numbers):Great Britain #138, Great Britain #133, and Germany #4 if it has a small shield on the eagle or #17 if it has a large shield. The missing or folded over perforation in the upper left corner, and the faded green color on the first one, and the very heavy and smudged cancellation on the second one make them less than ideal copies

Thank you. those heavy cancels are making it hard for me. Appreciate you. Nora.

A lot of German and UK in this lot - I have a lot to learn. I pulled a few more here - I am sure I can find them in the Scott classic catalogue. I wish I had more time to spend digging into these stamps.

Hi.
On the 2 pence stamp there is a nice commercial overprint from Royal Insurance Company Limited.

Thank you vayolene. this lot is full of surprises, that I have barely scratched the surface :) I think I may have bitten off a little more the I can chew with this lot - Ahhhh it's ok, so long as I store them properly - I will not run out of stamps to catalogue and explore.

I am thinking Japan? any insight appreciated.

The British stamps – sorry, I do not use Scott – but I hope this helps:

Row 1, stamp 1: Queen Victoria 1½d "Jubilee Issue" (issued 1 January 1887)
Row 1, stamp 2: King George V 2½d "Photogravure" (issued 1 January 1934), Stanley Gibbons lists ultramarine and bright blue
Row 1, stamp 3: King George V ½d "Postal Union Congress" (issued 1929), commemorative. This one exists with watermark inverted from booklets or sideways from coils.
Row 1, stamp 4: King George V 1d "MacKennal Head" (issued 1912 - 1934). This one comes with three watermarks: "simple cypher," "multiple cypher" and "block cypher." The first is a watermark with a crown over a script GvR. The watermarks are aligned vertically. The second is similar, but more than a full column of watermarks appears on a stamp and alternating columns are set at different heights. The columns slightly overlap. The third has columns of a more print-like GvR watermark.
The multiple cypher watermark comes from a coil and, normally is the most valuable. The other two come in a range of shades. These exist with inverted watermarks from booklets and sideways watermarks from coils. They also are known with reversed watermarks and sideways reversed watermarks.
Row 2, stamp 1: King Edward VII 4d. issue (issued 1902 - 1913). This stamp was printed by De La Rue. It exists on ordinary and chalk-surfaced papers. When sliding it over the tip of your lips, the chalk-surfaced paper tends to be much smoother.
Row 3, stamp 3: King George V 2d "MacKennal Head" (issued 1912 - 1934). This one comes with two watermarks: "simple cypher" and "block cypher" described above. Again, check for the way the crown points for watermark varieties. There are two types: the original stamp (type 1) has for horizontal lines above the head in the oval. The inner frame line is close to the inside. The re-engraved die (type 2) has three lines above the head, the inner frame line is closer to the outer frame line and the white line around "two pence" at the bottom is thicker. Type 1 only exists with the "simple cypher" watermark.
Row 2, stamp 3: King George V 1½d "Postal Union Congress" (issued 1929), commemorative. This one exists with watermark inverted from booklets or sideways from coils.
Row 2, stamp 4: another King George V 2½d "Photogravure" (issued 1 January 1934), Stanley Gibbons lists ultramarine and bright blue.
Row 3, stamp 1: King Edward VII 1 shilling (1/-) issue (issued 1902 - 1913). This stamp was printed by De La Rue. It exists on ordinary and chalk-surfaced papers. It was printed also at Somerset House. The De La Rue printings have a carmine frame and dull green centre. The Somerset House printings have darker greens and a scarlet frame. There is one shade in the Stanley Gibbons catalogue with a carmine frame printed at Somerset House. I think yours is a De La Rue stamp.
Row 3, stamp 2: King Edward VII 3d (issued 1902 - 1913). This stamp was printed by De La Rue. It exists on ordinary and chalk-surfaced papers. It was printed by Harrison & Sons. The stamp has a 14 perforation gauge if printed by De La Rue. Harrison & Sons also had this gauge, but they later printed stamps perforated with an almost 15 (14.75) gauge at top and bottom. Seen from the back, the Harrison stamps have a more lemon-like paper and the De La Rue printings have a more orange-yellow back – usually the front is more yellowish than the back -. The chalk-surfaced stamps from De La Rue also exist with the more lemon-like paper.

For Edward VII stamps, postmarks before 1911 are always De La Rue.

The watermarks of King George V

A little fun with the MacKennal 1d stamp shades.

You need to buy a catalog ,even a old one for a few dollars .The information will be the same other than prices.Those Japanese need to be checked for perforation and paper types .

I think your world wide catalog is the "Scott Classic Specialized catalog" which covers 1840-1940. If you are going to study stamps you will need a set of scott worldwide catalogs (or Stanley Gibbons) up through the years that you plan on collecting. There will be several volumes. I know 2002 set was 6 volumes and the first with actual images of stamps vs. drawings. If I were doing it I would try to get a mixed set of 6 from the early 2000s through Amazon or maybe this forum. Current sets are 12 volumes. (yikes)
Check your local libraries for loadable copies or try interlibrary loan. You can save some money that way.

All of the stamps Nora has posted here will be in the Scott 1840-1940 volume.

Wow, thank you NSK - KGV stamps - I always wanted to say/write that ;) That is very helpful to me - I will use my Scott Classic specialized 1840-1940 to learn more about them and your insight will help me with searches online - I know these are very nuanced. Checking for watermarks will be fun. Oh and yes, you are right, I definitely truly enjoy my stamps - such a wonderful hobby and my escape.

Floortrader: thank you for confirming that they are Japanese. I will use my Catalog and check for perfs and watermarks as well.

Hola Wkusau. Yes you are correct. I only have the two catalogues. The one I purchased from you :) and the World one, only through 1940. was hoping to get by with these two for a while - however, I am going to look for a bargain for the next volume in the set. I have some amazing French stamps from 1941-1950s that I will want to catalogue as I have started an Album.

Bonjour Geoff :) excellent.

Thanks for indulging me all - my work week was particularly difficult and was looking forward to interacting here with you all. Nora.

The GB tupenny orange is fiscally used. almost certainly an agent from The royal insurance company would have been selling insurance door to door and taking weekly or monthly payments on policies. The stamp cancelled with a signature would mean the document it was on was a legally binding document. seeing as the agent would have been issued with a large amount of stamps for this purpose they would have been overprinted to stop the agent mixing up the stamps with his own personal supply. When I was a child in the 1960s I remember seeing this done by an insurance agent at my Grandads house. the process was explained to me so I knew why I couldn't soak the stamp off and use it or add it to my collection.

The first KEVII 4d looks to be cancelled in Belfast.

Thanks for the all of the great information. I discovered quite a few more KGV, KGVI and KEVII stamps- really fascinating. - I can see why so many people collect these interesting beauties. I found another commercial overprint like the Royal insurance company and many others have Offices abroad overprints (only learning what this is). I spent time with my catalogue last night getting a beginners understanding of some of these Early GB stamps.

I think I am going to print out some of the GB album pages and slowly work with them like I am doing with my early France stamps. I ended up buying nice album paper. (based on suggestions on this site) and have access to World Album pages to print so that I can mount the countries, years and subjects that I like. Not necessarily any pattern or hurry - I am just collecting what makes me happy and where I can learn new things.