Specimen Stamps ~ A Celebration.

They just keep comin folks ! My favorite British Commonwealth stamps are those of Edward VII..

The colours on this example are stunning

Plateflaw has to win this month's scanned image trophy,
the "polished platen" for his exquisite scans
Lovely stuff.

Brit Specimens from the Stanley Gibbons preamble,
with the oft repeated philatelic mantra...
"dangerous forgeries of the punctured type exist"




posted elsewhere, but repeated here for the record:
Graham Land puncture specimen 2002 auction reserve $900

And here is an example of a De La Rue printing perforated specimen.

I'm going off you

I haven't quite finished yet jubilee.

Here is a Bradbury Wilkinson Specimen, also from Ceylon.

I never knew the terminology for the removal of tea leaves from branches is called "Plucking". What the pluck...

US information from a previous discussion
author : albumen circa 2004

US specimen's are mainly sought by specialists. The first 'specimen'
overprints appeared on the US 1861 Issue. Prior to that a control number was used on stamps exchanged with European governments as a way of defining the country's issues.

Then, in 1875 the US Post Office wanted a complete sets of all US stamps to sell to the public at the Centennial fair in Philadelphia. The back of the book material was overprinted, but postage stamps were not because the dealers &etc. wanted the option to use them for postage. So we have revenue stamps and state department stamps etc. with the specimen 'D' overprint.

Certain of these overprints are quite rare, but catalog values have lagged
severely. I purchased an unlisted Eagle Carrier with specimen 'D' overprint
from a dealer in Seattle a while back for $20. The imperforate stamp, with
full original gum, evidently came from a sampling of first day's production
for government approval way back in 1851. I don't know of an earlier issue
with specimen overprint!

-a

Here is one for jubilee.

Morroco Agencies 1914-26 Seahorse Waterlow Printing 6 Pesetas surcharge. SG 136s.

A beautiful stamp.

If I may, I'd like to re-ask a question from page 2 that went along with my Malta specimen. If I just missed the answer don't hesitate to send me back to it.

SG often lists a complete-set value for specimens, rather than individual values...any workaround for this? A 1d. should theoretically exist in similar numbers to a 2sh. in a specimen set, right? And yet I suspect it is not a straight division equation...

You are 100% correct Cjd. The UPU specimens generally exist with similar quantities of all values within a set. A 1d. specimen overprint would exist in the same numbers as a 10s. specimen overprint. For example, Gambia KGV 1912 set, 404 of all issues were overprinted "Specimen", except for the 4s. value, of which 399 were overprinted. Of the 1938 KGVI set for Gambia, the 1943 2d. is the only value with numbers known overprinted - 360.

Stamps overprinted and perforated "specimen" are massively undervalued.

Murray Payne Limited in Issue 85 (February 2010) of their Sixth Sense newsletter remark:




These comments are of course in relation to KGVI specimen sets. And beware of the many perforated forgeries on the market.

EDIT - And to answer your question, I am unaware of any pricelists for individual specimens when they are generally priced as complete sets.

I wonder about the undervaluing of specimens...I guess I agree that they are few in number, relatively speaking, and yet they've had decades to settle into their spots in the markets. There must be relatively few collectors that are willing to consider them.

The Wilberforce Sierra Leone set with the specimen perfins sold awhile back for less than I would have expected the regular set to fetch...I wonder how many sets of each ("regular" and specimen) circulate around?

Here are specimen issues for Pitcairn Islands 9 -10. They are a bit pricey and forgeries are VERY common, so I would be real careful before spending $300+ on the set.

Another seahorse Specimen, this time Levant.

British Levant 1921 overprinted for use at Constantinople only. Stanley Gibbons SG L24s catalogued at £140.



Enjoy!