Errors in Modern Indian Stamps

When I was young and collecting stamps, I was fascinated by stamp errors. The only 'error' stamps I owned were color variations and those too in used stamps. In my second innings as a collector I have managed to lay my hands on these 'error' stamps. And just when I was feeling kicked about it, fellow collectors tell me these are quite common in modern Indian stamps. Anyway, I am still happy to have these in my collection. Sharing some from my collection here.

Perforation shift Commemorative:

Perforation shift Service stamp:

Imperf definitive pair:

Year printed twice on Commemorative stamp:

Ceylon Genuine vs Forgery

An impulsive buy on an eBay auction has landed me a big lot. It contained mostly stamp varieties from commonwealth countries. Most of the stamps didn't interest me much but I decided to investigate a few that caught my eye. I searched the online catalog StampWorld.com to see if there were stamps that might be of value. I came across the 1859 Ceylon Queen Victoria Four Pence stamp. The catalog listed the unused stamp valued at $ 66,942. I said to myself 'yeah right!'. So I posted it on Facebook group. Promptly I was quoted Stanely Gibbons listing it at GBP 70,000. So had I landed myself a lottery? Wow, I was reveling in wishful thinking that I had landed myself a fortune.

I started searching the Internet about the stamp. My first instinct was this probably was not a real stamp. I came across details about genuine and forged Ceylon Four Pence Rose. The article lists points about genuine and forged stamp. While some of these point to my stamp being a forgery, some points sound like the stamp might be genuine.

It seems I can get my stamp evaluated by The Royal Philatelic Society of London. Let me research more on my own before I spend GBP 810 on getting this stamp evaluated.

Here's the genuine stamp according to Stamp Forgeries website:

And some forgeries from the same site:

1937 Coronation Stamps

I only had a few 1937 Coronation stamps in my collection before I chanced upon and won a very low priced auction of a large lot of these stamps.

In anticipation of that large lot, I started accumalating missing stamps from the collection. I have also started collecting FDCs/Covers of this set.

There are 202 stamps in the series issued by 58 colonies of the British Empire. Interestingly, no stamp was issued in India even though India was a British colony at that time.

Finally my large lot arrived. My collection of 1937 Coronation stamps is now respectable though still far from complete.

Each colony issued three stamps in the set in the list below. There were some exceptions of course, those are listed in parenthesis against the country name in the list below:

• Aden
• Antigua
• Ascension
• Bahamas
• Barbados
• Basutoland
• Bechuanaland
• Bermuda
• British Guiana
• British Honduras
• British Solomon islands
• Canada (1)
• Cayman islands
• Ceylon
• Cook islands
• Cyprus
• Dominica
• Falkland islands
• Fiji
• Gambia
• Gibraltar
• Gilbert and Ellice islands
• Gold coast
• Great Britain (1)
• Grenada
• Hong kong
• Jamaica
• Kenya Uganda and Tanganika
• Leeward Islands
• Malta
• Mauritius
• Monserrat
• Morocco Agencies (3) French Spanish and Tangier)
• Nauru (4)
• Newfoundland
• Newfoundland (11 in extended) 
• New guinea (4)
• New Zealand
• Nigeria
• Niue
• Northern Rhodesia
• Nyasaland
• Papua (4)
• Seychelles
• Sierra Leone
• Somaliland
• South Africa (5 pairs)
• South West Africa (8 Bilingual pairs)
• Southern Rhodesia (4)
• St Christopher and Nevis(St Kitts)
• St Helena
• St Lucia
• St Vincent
• Straits Settlements
• Swaziland
• Trinidad and Tobago
• Turks and Caicos
• Virgin islands

Modern Indian Used Stamps

I visited the Sunday market and met with the local stamp dealer. I asked for new Indian used stamps and he thrusted a large packet of unsorted stamps on paper and asked me to select the stamps I wanted. It was typical kiloware packet. When I asked how much for the whole packet, he refused to quote a price. What he told me was interesting and quite instinctively what I have been suspecting. He said hardly anyone one is posting letters, even fewer people are actually using stamps. Commemorative stamps hardly ever get used and most people have only mint stamps in their collection. And thus he wouldn't sell the whole packet but sell it per stamp. While it was still cheaper than most of what I have seen on eBay, he rather apologitically told me that he is now charging significantly more than what he used to charge earlier. Off-paper stamps were priced slightly higher. I am foreeing it harder to get used Indian stamps. And given the design of the stamps these days, we would soon end up with a market flooded with pictorial stamps that could be mistaken for Cinderallas.

How to Recognize Self-Adhesive Stamps

As you may know from my previous posts, I have been struggling with removing self-adhesive stamps from paper. I finally figured that hot water seems to work the best for me in removing self-adhesive stamps from paper. Having tried my hand at many many Australian stamps, I share with you a way to recognize these self-adhesive stamps on paper so you can be better prepared for them before you soak them in hot water.

Australia releases many variations of stamps. Typically stamps released in miniature sheets seem to be on gum paper, while others are on self-adhesive paper. The perforation of these stamps is an easy way to recognize them.

• Gum stamps usually have finer perforation (14) while self-adhesive stamps have more spread-out wavy perforation (11 or 11½). 
• Check the corners of the stamps. Gum stamps have regular corner perforation while self-adhesive stamps have a more rounded corner with missing perforation in the corner.
• Gum stamps also have pulled effect to perforations, while self-adhesive stamps have neater separation. 

I have noticed the above differences only in Australian stamps. My guess is these might be similar for other countries too like USA, Great Britain etc.

Cheers!

A few of my favourite things... philately, a good dram and photography. And I need to practice my photography more, feeling out of touch, unable to get a good composition and lighting. Hopefully will click some pics that I am really proud of. Until then, cheers folks!

Gutter Pairs

I had written about traffic lights stamps some time back. While I have been collecting those for a while, what's really fascinated me are gutter pairs. According to Wikipedia:

The philatelic ue of the word gutter is the space left between postage stamps which allows them to be separated or perforated. When stamps are printed on large sheets of paper that will be guillotined into smaller sheets along the gutter it will not exist on the finished sheet of stamps. Some sheets are specifically designed where two panes of stamps are separated by a gutter still in the finished sheet and gutters may, or may not, have some printing in the gutter. Since perforation of a particular width of stamps is normal, the gutter between the stamps is often the same size as the postage stamp.

I have always wanted to have gutter pairs in my collection when I was young. Finally I acquired my first gutter pair only recently when I restarted my hobby.

And more recently acquired gutter pairs of these beautiful 1980 Great Britain commemorative stamps.

Maybe some day I'll get gutter block also in my collection.

My next goal is to acquire Tête-bêche. More about that when I get those in my collection.