1951 3½d Block Of 4 With Grossly Misplaced Perforations

Visited the Newcastle Half National Stamp and Coin Exhibition on Sunday, not many people were in attendance, cannot say if the attendance was better on Friday or Saturday.

I picked up a few rare stamps, saw the exhibits, all were great; but before I show my new acquisitions I would like to share an experience with an interstate stamp dealer - What an idiot.

I just saw the 1942 tête-bêche pair, and went to another stamp dealer to share that unique experience seeing this unique rarity. The dealer said to me that it was part of the theft that occurred in the 1940s.

I said that is true. And then my partner and I copped the righteous act from him - "I will not touch stolen stamps, I had someone come in yesterday with some and I refused to buy them.

After he finished, I pointed to two blocks to my partner from his table, one a block of 4 and the other a block of 6, I then said to her in front of him, these two blocks were from the 1940s theft, he looked like a stunned mullet when I said that.

Now to the stamps I purchased yesterday. This rare stamp is a 1951 3½d Block of 4 with grossly misplaced perforations, the block is totally mint unhinged and is in spectacular condition, front and back is shown.

Perforations misplaced by 8-9mm

Beautiful! It always makes me crinch when someone puts a strip of coils on ebay that is 1 mm (mis)-perforated and then claims a huge misperforation! Now yours is as huge as they come!


Peter

Probably taken from printers waste bin .

Hi Peter

Thanks, it is quite a large mis-perf, I have another that was mis-perfed and guillotined incorrectly.

Hi Aussie Al

I actually have such printers waste that were stolen in 1947, none were used for postage, all were sold to a stamp dealer, and I do not believe that this block was ever pilfered. I believe this was accidentally added to a batch of sheets being distributed to a post office, the stamp attached is from the sheet the block of 4 came from and it is commercially used. This makes the stamp and the block of 4 a true philatelic error as there was no theft involved.

Yeah ok lol.

Hi Aussie Al

I agree they are printer's waste, I forgot to mention, this block of 4 was not part of the NPB thefts which occurred between 1942-1947, since the theft was discovered the security was ramped up to prevent any more occurrences of theft.

This design was issued in 1951, and there is one used stamp discovered, it is believed that the sheet which was supposed to have been set for destruction accidentally ended up in a batch of sheets being allocated to post offices.

The same incident occurred with the 1982 60 cent Humpback whale when a few sheets of a rejected design (can also be classified as printer's waste) ended up in a batch of stamp sheets ready for distribution to post offices.

So no theft of this variety occurred.

Rob041256,

During 40+ years of temp' custodianship I'd often wondered about the production/distribution circumstances with this misperf. ?

And Juzwin used them for postage!

Hi 64idgaf

Incorrect. Richard Juzwin bought many sheets from a law firm that was going out of business, it was the Juzwins that found the error when sorting out the stamps, the lawyer was the culprit that used some of the stamps for clientele mail-outs.

Rob

Hi finches

Wouldn't have the faintest idea.

Rob