British South Africa Company, Rhodesian Collection

Hi there. My area of expertise is numismatics, with just a dabbling here and there in philately. However, I have come into possession of something really impressive, an almost complete collection of stamps pertaining to Rhodesia, starting at the first 1892 issues of the British South African Company, up to 1978. I'm wondering what might be my best options to go about selling this collection. Just sell it on my ebay account? Sell it as a complete collection, or break it up? Send it to a specialized auction house? Any suggestions are most welcome! Thanks

If it contains the stamps with high CVs, a good auction house would probably be the best bet. Perhaps show some of the stamps here, eg the "double-head" George V and Queen Mary.

Without seeing it what would matter the most is how many of the higher value key pieces do you have?

I'm talking about the 5/- & 10/- & £1 values and higher.

We need pictures .........there is no correct answer unless we know what is there .

I appreciate the fast answers, thanks. I will take some photos and upload them this evening.

Pictures please! If really complete and in good condition, this is a treasure trove. I would think auction house, not Ebay.

Hopefully these pictures give some idea. I just photographed the highest denomination stamps. Not sure about clarity, one doesn't exactly get the highest resolution with a 300kb pic limit.#128516;

I'm seeing some toning issues, but that aside, most of the high face value stamps are fiscally cancelled.

We'll need somebody with a Barefoot catalogue to do some looking up for you.

Unfortunately, the photo quality leaves something to be desired, making it difficult to judge the condition, and as already noted, most of those appear to be fiscally cancelled.

Fiscally used stamps have a fraction of the catalogue value of mint or postally used stamps. Interestingly, the catalogue values pencilled in on the pages are noted in both pounds sterling and South African rands.

One thing to take note of with the high-value Rhodesia/British South Africa stamps is that in many cases even if they appear mint or postally used, they are actually cleansed fiscal cancels which can often be detected by a close examination or under a UV lamp.

The second page of your stamps, the bottom right stamp, despite the annotation is fiscally cancelled. Pefins (holes punched in the face), are always fiscal cancellations on BSA stamps and are fairly common.

Despite most appearing to be fiscally cancelled postage stamps, these are still popular with postage stamp collectors and often go for amounts in the $20 - $150 range depending on the actual stamp and condition as many are extremely expensive and hard to find mint or postally used.

The two large arms stamps on the bottom of your fifth page (I can't make out the denominations from the photo) are fiscally cancelled revenue stamps.

Clive

Nice collection ,I think the best price you will get would be thru a Canadian Auction firm like SPARKS . They would know the material . They will want you to get a few cert's thru the Greene Foundation to confirm those that have postal cancels .Good Luck and thanks for the photos .

Thirty & Fifty pounds. No small sums!

I think the first thing to do is clean it up on new pages .

You should also check the double heads for both the shades and also the perfs ,then add both information . to your pages.

£30 = £175 ( P = Perfinned worth less)

£50 = 1896 Grey and Orange = £75 perf 15 ( P = Perfinned worth less)

£50 = 1896 Blue and Orange = £125 perf 12½ ( P = Perfinned worth less)

Year 2000 prices

"Values above £2 were hardly ever used for postage "

"Examples with postal cancels may be remaindered stock cancelled by favour"

1898 stamps
unused £20 £100 with "slightly toned paper"
are proofs from printer's archives which recently came onto the market (2000)

Only six correctly used examples of the £100 are so far recorded (2000)

Given the condition issues and fiscal cancels and the fact that most auction houses have a minimum consignment value EBay is probably the way to go.