Specimen Stamps ~ A Celebration.

A thread to highlight and display, the poor frustrated cousins
to those emmissions that have, or at least have the opportunity to travel the world, see far off places, and become desired.

These fellows, by the stroke of a hammer, lay dormant,
unwanted by letter writers, destined to lay in stamp albums
foever marked by the exclusion "not wanted on voyage"

People, I give you the "Specimen"

Inspired by Nigelc's Ecuador stamps, I thought it time
to celebrate these poor individuals.

Specimen....Muestra....(Czech=Vzorec)

To keep BeeSee happy, we begin with Tuvalu (Tu vaa lu)

This should also please the double decker (aka londonbus)
as there are more flags than you can poke a staff at.
Including the royal standard of Prince Philip

ABOUT SPECIMENS By DAVID PLUMMER

Local philatelic history has been made by the appearance of three
Australian high values overprinted "Specimen". These were issued (to
quote the inscription on the pack) to offer "collectors a rare opportunity to
add official 'Specimen* items to their collections," and to "enable Australia
Post to assist the Australian International Philatelic Exhibition, Ausipex
84".
The second of these objectives is the historic development mentioned. The
first is an echo of early Commonwealth philatelic history, and one wonders
that it was not a continuing practice. The overprinting of high values to
supply Australian collectors with samples of such stamps at a reduced cost
followed the introduction of the first Commonwealth adhesives, the
kangaroo-map design.
Specimen stamps had appeared elsewhere in the world long before 1913. In
a way, their initial provision was a misunderstanding of an official
instruction issued by the Universal Postal Union in 1878. Part of the
agreement reached by member-nations provided for documents relating to
their postal arrangements to be sent to the central Bureau for general
distribution. This was, quite reasonably, taken to mean that copies of each
current stamp should be so forwarded, for archival purposes and also to
show what postmasters might expect to see on international mail.
From the beginning, some countries overprinted stamps before sending
them to the Bureau, others sent mint or lightly postmarked copies. The
early requirements were not large, but as the U.P.U. grew in strength, and
as stamps of higher value were issued, it became obvious that there was
some possibility of trafficking; light postmarks could be easily removed.
While, for example, up to 1867 the top value in British stamps reached
only 2/-that increased to 5/- in that year, and IO/-, £1 and £5 stamps were
on the way.
Till 1882, 92 copies of each stamp issued were sent to the Bureau. This
figure became 300 by 1886. By the end of the century there were 730, and
the U.P.U. was returning some of them to the senders because of storage
problems. (Why, if distribution was being undertaken as arranged?) In
1907 the quantity to be sent was reduced to 448, and later to 400.

A long set of stamps showing various works by
Goya was issued by Spain in 1930. To make sure
that they gained attention, specimen sets were
sent to major newspapers throughout the world.
"Muestra", reading upwards, may be noticed at
the lady's feet.
The customary overprint on British Colonial
stamps found a solution, and perforating the word "Specimen" in each
stamp was introduced.
Before returning to the history of Australian specimen stamps, certain
points about these stamps should be mentioned.
First, not all stamps so overprinted by other countries were prepared as
copies for U.P.U. files or for overseas postal authorities. The specimen
stamps just issued through our own philatelic sales counters may be quoted
as examples of this. Important visitors from other countries, stamp
designers and artists, politicians, and similar people may become recipients
of copies so overprinted. In certain cases, copies were sold to philatelists.
Additional suppplies were likely to be printed when some later important
occasion involved a "mass" presentation of postal material. The
distribution of "Specimen" stamps as publicity for new issues is increasing.

A U.P.U. Congress is held every four to five years, and for the national
delegates who attend these meetings an issue of stamps is usually made by
the host country, a different venue being used for each Congress. These are
often specimen copies, but latterly ordinary stamps have been used for such
occasions, working on the theory that surely men of such eminence would
not stoop to using their mementos for personal gain.

In 1929 a five-stamp issue was made by Great Britain for the Congress held
in London that year; the values were '/id., Id., l'/2d. and 2d., and £1. The
story used to run that the £1 stamp was issued because it was belatedly
realised that, at 5!/2d., the total face value of the set appeared rather
niggardly. The story can be believed if "belatedly" is dropped from it. The
very poorly designed low values were typographed, whereas the £1 stamp
was well designed and beautiful.

The Australian Stamp Monthly, April, 1983
Page 41

Perhaps I was a bit hasty with the phrase "not desired"

Some fellows have become so....

This is a specimen of an American Banknote issue,
probably used for propaganda.
The vignette features Rembrandt.

The picture to the right, is a detail from a Norman Rockwell
stamp (possibly Liberian) I forget.

Mr. Rockwell has a series of painters pictures on his easel,
we have Durer, Rembrandt (The same, but he has changed his coat!)
and a picture of Van Gogh (all self portraits)

Can anyone recognise the picture above Van Gogh,
would that be a picasso?

NEW PRINTER FOR AUSTRALIAN STAMPS

The Melbourne security printing firm of Asher & Co. has printed the
new $10 stamp which will be released on October 19.
The stamp, printed by multi-colour photo lithography on a
two-colour Roland Rekord machine, are on KP6T unwatermarked
paper incorporating helecon.
The stamp, measuring 30 mm x 50 mm and vertically arrange
features a reproduction of another Tom Roberts painting, "Coming
South", the original of which now hangs in the National Gallery of
Victoria.
The stamp is being produced to meet the needs of customers using
Surface Air Lift (SAL), overseas air mail or international priority
paid services. The new stamp will be an addition to the current,
long-term definitive, Australian Paintings series.

The other values in the series —
$1 "Sergeant of Light Hourse",
$2 "Red Gums of the Far North" and
$4 "Shearing the Rams" — were issued on April 24, 1974.

Tom Roberts (1856-1931) was born in Dorchester, England, and with
his family, migrated to Australia, where they settled in Melbourne.
He received his initial art training in Melbourne and in 1881, went to
England to complete his formal studies. He painted, "Coming South",
on his return to Australia in 1885. The painting shows a scene on
board the "S.S. Lusitania", the vessel in which Roberts returned to
Australia.

i will be glad to give you a speciman..only kidding Rod...i have some from that hotbed of specimans The Grenadines of St. Vincent !

i could keep this up for a long time !!

After years of searching, I finally found them !

Londonbus1

Congress Centenary, Manchester 2009.
Presentation Sheet.



Londonbus1....A poor Specimen !

Nice ones lads! first time I have seen any of them.
Thanks for sharing.

I wonder if the suggested copious issues
from the Grenadines, was another way to offer
CTO Cancelled to order emmissions.

Rod, I would not be surprised if its a sales gimmick..when I was younger and I don't know if I was foolisher I won a lot of 8 dealer stockbooks at auction...the St Vincent book had sets with and without the speciman overprint...also lets look at the population of the Grenadines vs. the variety of stamps they issue...

Good start in the Specimen thread with Tuvalu Rod

Here is a Specimen of Scott 2a, Tuvalu overprint on Gilbert and Ellice Islands, 1976, upright watermark. The value is about $20 with the SPECIMEN overprint, but cataloged at $1,500 mint WITHOUT the SPECIMEN overprint, one of the rarest stamps of Tuvalu.



Philby and Rod, modern Specimen stamps from St. Vincent and islands, Tuvalu and some other countries WERE some sort of sales gimmick, but sets (in the late 1970's anyway) were sent to the UPU, and in addition, to stamp dealers and philatelic publications. Single stamps were often given free to collectors who had standing orders with the countries - if you bought more stamps, you would get more Specimens, sometimes the complete set. Of course the British stamp dealer who owned the philatelic agency that managed those countries philatelic bureaux ALWAYS had complete sets for sale at high prices, usually $30 to $60 each.

After the agency was sold to another dealer, the market of those countries collapsed for various reasons, and the value of Specimen stamps went way down. Now they can be bought on ebay for cheap prices, often below face, especially St. Vincent and islands.

Rod, I did not know Australia had modern Specimen stamps - how are they distributed and what general value do they have?

Londonbus1, those British Empire Exhibition Specimens are VERY nice!

BeeSee about 3 years ago we took a little cruise out of Tampa...the Mexican port was a dump..but they had a junket to see the Mayan ruins at Tulum..i figured thats as close as I was likely to get in the near future so I jumped at the chance...it was the highlight of the cruise..better than beating the dealer in the ships casino at Carribean Poker ! Then we stopped in the Cayman Islands and we took a little tour in a van..theres no middle ground in the Caymans..you either live in a shack or a high rise condo by the beach..so the tour took us to Hell where you can get Hell postmarks..it was a tiny grocery store that sold stamps and cancelled them..so I mailed 3 or 4 postcards from hell...then the tour showed us a TURTLE FARM..accross from the turtle farm was a building which the guide tried to gloss over...it was a canning factory..now what do you suppose they might be canning accross from a turtle farm !!

Philby, could it be this poor "specimen" that was getting canned across from the Turtle Farm...

I don't have a single specimen to share Must add this to my KGV list of things to find (ouch.....)