Gettin Busy With The Roos!

Well, now that I have gone through most everything in my dad's collection (except the prehistoric USA stuff which looks like a daunting task), I am going to get busy with the Roos.

I am starting to do the hi-res scans now beginning with lowest of the denominations and then working my way up. In total I have 19 of them so this could go on for a little while I guess.

I am doing both front and back scans at 800 DPI. As an aside, I did some tests at 800 DPI and 1,200 DPI and found that 800DPI is probably enough detail already without making the files way too big for most people's screens. Color accuracy is of course an issue as always, but I would say they are about 85-90% accurate on my screen.

I would appreciate any help identifying them by Scott numbers and I am attaching the section on Roos from the 2009 Scott catalog. I realize there are other catalogs like the SG that carry a lot more information about the many different varieties, but let's see if Scott at least covers the ones I have for now.

Cheers...



Roo #1:

Roo #2

Roo #3 (Watermark either Type 1 or Type 4)

Roo #4





Roo #5





Roo #6

Roo #7





Roo #8





Roo #9

Marc, with respect, I don't think you are going
to get very far without establishing watermarks.
The tuppeny grey, is double the value with a second watermark
than the first.
Your stamp examples look in good nick for Roos
that's well in your favour.

With scanning I have found 600dpi the optimum res,
and more or less, I seem to get a degraded image.
Hope this helps.

Stamp 3 shows a very feint watermark,
and going by the vertical stroke on the left hand side
I would suggest it to be a first watermark
making it SG4 (27th january 1913) Type 1 Die2 indigo
GBP27mint GBP10 used in 1993

I am no expert on roos.

Thanks Rod for your good advice. Its all a learning experience for me. Anyway, I will post the rest of the scans and then go from there on the watermarks. When I scan, I am also careful not to let the scanner add any sharpening. This helps I think. Again, 800 seems to be OK on my scanner (its just a cheap Canon Lide 25 by the way). I tried 600 at first, but it seemed a bit on the low-res side.

Roo #10





Roo #11





Roo #12 (Watermark appears to be type 4)

Roo #13





Roo #14





Roo #15





Roo #16

Roo #17





Roo #18





Roo #19

That's it. That is all 19 of the ones I have.

G'Day Marc I don't know if you have a watermark identifier for Aussie stamps though there is a thread I can direct you to that may give you an idea on the watermarks on the reverse of your roo's,if you haven't watermark fluid just place the stamps face down on something black and this may be enough to see the watermark,just compare them against the chart and you should be able to tell the forum which one's they are.
So try this thread address for the Aussie watermark chart,

https://goscf.com/t/8191

If you have trouble one of us will help you out.
regards Harry

Thanks Harry. I will give the watermarks a go. I looked at your other threat and they seem very subtle and I hope I can recognize them. I will try. By the way, I also managed to get a copy of the 2007 Stanley Gibbons catalog, but it seems a bit more confusing than I imagined.

By the way, I have 29 KGVs to try and identify as well. Will they also have a watermark issue in terms of making a proper identification? Cheers. Marc

Yes: the Geo Vs will also need the watermarks to be identified. And then there's the question of rough versus smooth paper and line versus comb perforations as well for some issues.

If you thought the 'Roos were hard, just wait until you try the George Vs!

It seems though the Roos are potentially a fair bit more valuable than the KGVs, so I may not bother trying to figure out then the KGVs if it could be that much more difficult. Thanks for lettng me know on advance though.