Australian Kangaroo Collection (Novice Stamp Collector)

Hey everyone, I'm relatively new to stamp collecting and excited to start off my collection and join communities.
I have been given some kangaroo stamps from a distant family member who also used to collect.

They weren't sure of the value so I thought id ask here - any help or a rough estimate would be greatly appreciated.

----- I'm also not particularly certain about the years of the stamps -----

I've linked all the scans in this post - sorry if the formatting is poor!


Thanks, OHBU

Can help with values but I like your organization. This is a great hobby. Good luck.

Hi Ohbu20:

Welcome to the group. That's quite a store of Roos you have. I have done my best to classify them per the current ACSC Kangaroos catalogue (2017). The old K catalogue numbers are no more and the range of shades has been changed in the meantime. It is not really possible to guage the colour based on an image - they need to be seen personally. And sometimes the shade variations can be quite slight. I hope you are thinking of developing this collection, but if you are thinking of selling then off, then here is a caveat about the Catalogue Values. On the open market, anything over 30% of CV can be seen as a victory. Selling to a dealer will generally get less. Also condition is important. To get over 30% of CV, a stamp needs to be clean, lightly postmarked, well-centred and with few or no short perforations.

So here is my best guess as to your trove of goodies. I am sure to have made some mistakes in this but generally, I think it points in the right direction.

It occurred to me belately that as new to stamp collecting, youmay not have details of the differences between the Roo Dies. An image follows. In a nutshell:

• Die I has a break in the inner left frame level with the top of the words of the denomination.
• Die II has that break repared
• Die IIA has a break in the left inner frame as indicated in the image
• Die IIB has a break in the top outer frame but this is often filled in in the printing process. It can also be identified by the inner frame lines in the top right corner, where the inner right frame line does not quite come up to join the inner top frame linr

Always nice to see a mob of 'roos

And for good measure, here are the watermarks used on Australian stamps. They are seen in reverse when viewed from the back of the stamp.

Thanks Itma - That was incredibly helpful and I now know I have a lot more to learn than I'd previously thought, really appreciate the time you put into that response and I'm glad to be apart of the community.

Cheers

My pleasure, pal,

Ohbu20:

My apologies - I did screw up on a couple of valuations. K10B/13B and K10D/13D should have been $200 each, rather than $400. I had originally translated K10B and D as 12B and D. On double checking, I corrected 12 to 13 but omitted to change the CV.

Thanks to Partime for pointing this out.

Frank.

Currently when looking at bulk lots of Roo mixtures I set my buying price at around 50 cents per stamp. I occasionally adjust for quality and content. Because of the availability of plating material 1d,2d and 9d lots often attract more attention.

On ebay a full Hagner of about 50 stamps generally attracts around $40-50. I think the most I have paid for a mixed collection of around 50 stamps was $80 but I knew there was a 2d substituted cliche in it!

There are a lot of 1/- Roos in the above collection and I would expect this to lower interest in it.

The real money in used Roos is in varieties.

As a collector I am more interested in the quality of my collection and only place a value when selling. For insurance purposes I have to have a value and for this purpose I set 30% of catalogue value as the standard for my specialised group.The other 500 or so Roos I value at $100.

Without an identified variety in the above lot I would not place a high value on it. It would be best used as a base for starting a collection.

The catalogue values set out by itma should not be used to value this collection. Catalogue values are set on fine used which I doubt you would find here.

Regards
Frank

Lots of roo stamps there and not a decent cancel or SON among the mob.................

Those seem to extremely hard to find.

A bunch of stamps that can probably be used as a starter collection or to trade off for others.

Too bad the blocks aren't in better condition as those would be of interest to many people.

There are some stamps here that present as fine used but would need examination of the backs to confirm.

Ohbu,

Welcome to the hobby.

Those pages of roos are a lovely start to your collecting.

John