Album pages common designs - 2a. 1978 25th anniversary of the Coronation

In the series of my self made albums, a new entry on the common design stamps.
In 1978, the world, and the British Commenwealth in particular, celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Coronation of Queen Elisabeth II.

20 (21) countries participated with a strip of 3 stamps, issued in sheetlets of 6.

Common Design 326

Christmas Island and Cayman Islands

Many more countries issued stamps in regards to this anniversary, but some had a totally different design, (Great Britain for example) and many others used another 'common design'.

25th anniversary Great Britain

other 'common designs' for the 25th anniversary

The other stamps with a common design, will be topic of another post.

For this issue, the following countries each issued a strip of 3 stamps, always with Queen Elisabeth II in the middle, and two royal symbols left and right.

1. Ascension Island : Lion - QE II - Green turtle 
2. Barbados : Griffin of Eduard III - QE II - Pelican
3. Belize : White lion of Mortimer - QE II - Maya jaguar
4. British Antartic Territory : Black bull of Clarence - QE II - Emperor penguin
5. Cayman Islands : Yale of Beaufort - EQ II - Screech owl
6. Christmas Island : White swan of Bohun - QE II - Abbott's booby
7. Falkland Islands : Red dragon of Wales - QE II - Hornless ram

Fiji and Falkland Islands

8. Fiji : White hart of Richard II - QE II -  Banded Iguana
9. (The) Gambia : White greyhound of Richmond - QE II -  Lion
10. Gilbert Islands : Unicorn of Scotland - QE II - Great frigate bird
11. Mauritius: Antelope of Bohun - QE II - Dodo
12a. New Hebrides Condominium (BR) : White horse of Hanover - QE II - Gallic cock
12b. Condominium des Nouvelles-Hebrides (FR) : Le Cheval blanc d'Hanover - QE II - Le coq gaulois
13. St Helena : Black dragon of Ulster - QE II -  Sea lion

British and French New Hebrides

14. St Christopher/Nevis/Anguila : Falcon of Eduard III - QE II - Pelican
15. Samoa :  King's lion - QE II - Pacific pigeon
16. Solomon Islands : King's dragon - QE II - Sandford eagle
17. South Georgia : Panther of Henry VI - QE II - Fur seal
18. Swaziland : Queen's lion - QE II - African elephant
19. Tristan da Cunha : King's bull - QE II - Tristan crawfish
20. British Virgin Islands : Falcon of the Plantagents - QE II - Iguana

British Virgin Islands

Download the album here : Common Design 326

to be continued ...

Call me by your number - 01c Black, red and blue pennies

From 1858 on, till 1869, new plates were issued, with red pennies, and blue 2 pence stamps.

Now the four corners have letters BA-AB for row A, column B.
There are 240 stamps in each plate, going from AA to TL.

For the 1 penny red:

Row R (18), stamp B (2)

Plate numbers are now mentioned in the left and right border decoration of the stamp.

The 1 penny red and perforated with 4 letters (one in each corner), had an extended life span.
They were printed from 1858 till 1879. Therefore, many plates were used, re-used, and retouched during those many years.

They started with plates 69 and 70, but due to many defects on the plate, those stamps were never printed. Same goes for plates 75, 126 and 128 - plate 77 was also rejected, but very few of the printed stamps did get into ciruclation and are therefore extremely rare.
A "77" is most likely a "117" or a "177",  or a completely forged stamp.

A much more challanging collection, is the compilation of a red penny (perforated) of each plate.
The total amount of issued, perforated red pennies, is 13,434,000,000 (55,975,000 sheets). 
So the amount of stamps is not the main problem.

But, first of all, plate numbers are not always very clearly printed, and greasy cancels will not make your search easier either. Plate numbers exist from plate 71 till plate 225.

Plate 225

With some help from the computer, the colours of the image can be altered, so that the contrast becomes more useful to determinate the plate number.
The stamp above leads me to plate 225 (or the last issued plate).

Two albums for possible collections :

plate numbers 1p

plate reconstruction 1p

For the 2 pence blue:

Row H (8), stamp F (6)

Plate numbers are now again in the left and right border decoration of the stamp.

Plate 8

The stamp above is from plate 8, the second plate used to print the 2 penny of this new series.
Plates 7, 8, 9, 12, 13, 14 and 15 can be found.

These blue pence stamps are still affordable, and although 'old', they were emitted in such high quantities, about 196,824,000 (820,100 sheets), that they still can be found in (older) albums.

A full collection (240 of each plate), requires 1680 stamps.
More common is to compile a mixed sheet, with all plate positions.

However, feel free to collect them both : a reconstructed plate with all letter variations, and / or even more specific with stamps  .

Two albums for possible collections :

plate numbers 2p

plate reconstruction 2p

to be continued...

Call me by your number - 01b Black, red and blue pennies

A third variation of the Victorian pennies: are the perforated red penny and blue 2 pence.
They come in two variations, watermark small crown and watermark large crown, and perforation 14 or perforation 16.

As for now, all stamps mentioned here and in my previous post, have only two letters in the bottom of the stamp, and no plate number in the left and right margin.

These stamps are also called the red and blue 'star' penny.
The upper corners of the stamps don't have letters yet, but a decoration in a 'star' shape.
Again here, the specificy font of the alphabet, gives you an indication of the plate the were on, but plate numbers are not written on the stamps.

Also here, a sheet reconstruction is possible, compiling all 240 stamps from AA to TL.
It is also possible, to start two plate reconstructions for stamps with a large or a small crown watermark, as well as two plate reconstructions for stamps perforated 14 or perforated 16...

Red star penny plate reconstruction 

Blue star 2 pence plate reconstruction 

to be continued...

Call me by your number - 01a Black, red and blue pennies

A penny for your thoughts, but which one...
The 'first' (black) penny is unperforated, and has letters in the bottom corners only.

There were 11 plates, and plate I was divided into plate IA and IB.
It takes a whole study on its own, as the differences are found in the use of different fonts of the alphabet.

1 penny black

The total number of 1p blacks distributed in 1840 is recorded as 63,561,840... this isn't a low number, but in 1840 there were hardly people collecting stamps, and lots of stamps were lost.

2 pence blue

A 2 pence stamp was also issued in 1840.

It has the same features as the 1p, unperforated, letters in the lower corners only -> AA to TL

The total number of 2d Blues recorded as sold in 1840 is 5,382,240. (plates 1 and 2)

This 2p was issued again in 1841, now about 87,960,000 stamps (plates 3 and 4)

1 penny red

Second in line, are the inperforated 1p red pennies.

Total number issued over 2,588,000,000 of which it is estimated 120,000,000 were later perforated, leaving an approximate total of imperforate stamps of 2,468,000,000...

They were printed on plates 1 to 131, but the plate numbers do NOT appear on the stamps.

see link above for the album.

Therefore, I have made a 'basic' album for those who want to collect all letter combinations AA to TL, and another 'basic' album, for those who want to collect all plate number, regardless the corner letters.

full reconstruction of a sheet
source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_Black_printing_plates

I once had the opportunity to see a full reconstruction of a red penny plate. This was collected throughout many years, by one senior member of our stamp club, Peter.

First downloadable documents, are blank album, for all 240 pennies, with letters in 2 lower corners (imperforated).
The reason for this 'odd' number of 240, lies in the fact that till 1971, the imperial system was used.
1 British pound (£),  was worth 20 shillings, and one shilling was 12 pence.
Hence, each row of 12 black/red pennies, was worth one shilling, and all 20 rows together made the cost of one full sheet 1£.

Plate reconstruction 1 penny black

Plate reconstruction 2 pence blue

Plate reconstruction 1 penny red

It can be used for black and or red pennies, and also for the blue 2 pence stamps.
As the first stamps had no plate numbers printed on the stamps, it's very hard to compile a full sheet from the same plate.

to be continued....

Call me by your number - 00 b Introduction

From the 'black penny in 1840, till the emission of 1883, plate numbers can be found on the stamps.
Each of the plates had 240 stamps. Most of them were issued on sheets of 20 rows and 12 columns.

An option would have been to 'number' those rows and columns, but letters were chosen instead.
Rows went from A to T, and columns from A to L; resulting in 240 stamps from AA to TL.

The letters to determinate, are the ones on the bottom of the stamp.
Below is a stamp (plate 22) - position K D (not DK !) - so row 11, stamp 4

plate 22 - position KD

One special version of the black penny, is with letters VR by the way.
These do not appear on a 'normal' sheet of 240 (nor does RV), they refer to the Latin Victoria Regina (Queen Victoria) and were used as service (official) stamps. 

Not only one can start looking for all possible plate numbers of one particular issue, (not always mentioned in regular catalogs by the way), but also the different positions of each stamp within the different plates.

For the depicted stamp above, there were 17 plates with a pink 2 1/2d stamp, and 7 plates (17 till 23) with the blue version. A total of 5760 'different' stamps to search for...

to be continued ...

 

Call me by your number - 00 a Introduction

Numbers have always been appealing to people.
But for once, the question is not 'how many stamps do you have'... but which numbers do you have.

Collecting different images on stamps, and later discovering errors in those images, is already a very pleasing activity.
But what if it was made 'simple' ... just collecting the numbers appearing on the stamps.

In the beginning, british stamps were printed on numbered plates. Those numbers were however not printed somewhere at the top or the bottom of that sheet, but on the stamps theirselves.

On US stamp sheets, the plate numbers can be found in the border frame of the sheets.

Plate 170, with the name of the printing company

Only stamps with a certain part of the border paper, will reveil the plate number.
You need to be lucky somehow, to find the different plate numbers, as they are not part of the stamp, and might have been thrown away long time ago.

The british stamps however had their plate numers printed ON the stamp itself.
As there were many prints of the same stamps, over the years, identical looking stamps, had possibly different plate numbers.

a red penny - plate 107

Some plates got distroyed, due to failiures, damage, ... so various plate numbers became more rare than others. 

The perforated red penny, was first printed on plate 69, and ended with plate 225.
Plate 69 and 70 however were rejected (not issued), and also 75, 126 and 128 were destroyed.
3 more plates, 226, 227 and 228 were prepared, but never used.
The most notorious plate, plate 77 was also rejected, but some of the printed stamps did manage to come into circulation. Their value is now sky rocketing.

After the black, red and blue pennies, plate numbers restarted from 1 again.
Some of them are very visible, others are more difficult to find, especially on used stamps.

Other examples :

plate 14

plate 22

plate 14

plate 8

plate 18

 

plate 15

plate 1

plate 2

 

plate 13

 

a difficult one ... plate 13

to be continued...

Theme : 1st issues : 11 Great Britain

I have posted many nr 1's so far, but the absolute 1st number one is of course the famous 'black penny'.

Issued on May 1, 1840, changed the whole postal system in use at that time.
No longer the one who received the mail had to pay, but the sender could buy a 'stamp' to pay for sending a message over mail to another person.

The first stamp did not bear any name of country, as it was issued in the UK only.
This privilege is still valid until today, as the United Kingdom, is the only country in the world, that has no country name mentioned on it's stamps.

1840 Black Penny

In the image we see Queen Victoria, designed by Charles Health, after a sketch made by Henry Corbould. He was inspired by an engraver named William Wyon, who made a medal for the Queen's visit to London in 1837.

The first stamp came in sheets of 240 stamps. 24 rows of 12 stamps. Nowadays, stamps are often printed in sheets of 100 or an equivalent of 100's. But in 1840, the British were not using the decimal system yet.
A 'pound' (£) used to be the value of a pound of silver (= 0.45359237 kg).
1 pound was devided into 20 shillings, and one shilling devided into 12 pence each.
Although the decimal system is more logical (we have 10 fingers), this predecimal system had many advantages too, as 240 can be divided by 2,3,4,5,6,8,10,15,16,20,24,30,40,60, 80 and 120, where '100' only can be divided by 2,4,5,10,20,25 and 50.

The sheet of 240 stamps of this black penny, have letters in the lower corners. Each combination depends on the position on the sheet.

position of black pennies in a sheet

Each row of 12 makes one shilling, twenty rows of 1 shilling, make one pound.
The letter left on the stamp, indicates the row, and the one right the column.
The stamp shown above (B J) is therefore in position 22.

Although each stamp on the sheet has the same value, the ones in with double letters, i.e. AA, BB, CC, ... are sought. Stamps in the border of the sheet, often have better margins, some even with extra information.

From this issue, 286,670 sheets were printed, good for over 68,8 million black pennies. Estimated is, that about 1,3 million of them survived time.

Odd stamps : 03d 3D stamps (moving)

3D stamps will always be spectacular. to look at...
Not to print, or to be put on a website like this one.

Thunderbirds' lenticular sheet (from UK's Royal Mail website)

The pic above was taken from the website of the UK's Royal Mail. As my picture is less fancy...

same sheet, my scan ...

The UK's royal mail created a set of lenticular stamps to honour the work of Supermarionation legend Gerry Anderson MBE and his team at Century 21 Productions. The lenticular stamps feature the countdown and launch sequence of all the legendary Thunderbirds craft from the iconic 1960's series' title sequence.

Some episodes have been on (British) television in the 90's as well, but I'm not sure if young readers will remember the Thunderbirds as the British science fiction television series.
It was first broadcasted during 1965 and 1966, devised by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and made by their company, AP Films, using a form of marionette puppetry dubbed "Supermarionation". 
The series followed the adventures of International Rescue, a secretive organisation created to help those in grave danger using technically advanced equipment and machinery launched from its hidden Tracy Island base. The series focused on the head of the organisation, ex-astronaut Jeff Tracy, and his five sons who piloted the "Thunderbird" crafts. Its London agent, Lady Penelope, also makes frequent appearances. The series has benefited from periodic revivals since - as well as subsequently inspiring other television programmes and advertisements, theatrical productions, feature films and substantial merchandise.

Thunderbirds in action

It's not easy to make scans of 3D images, so I tried to scan the sheet in different ways, hoping to give an impression of the images that can be seen on the 4 lenticular stamps.

view on the lenticlar sheet

Another view on the lenticular sheet

The stamps have also been issued as non-lenticular images.

I found this video on the 3D sheetlet :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=k05u3mIltG0#t=22s

more to follow ...

Microstates : 09 St Kilda (cinderellas)

Saint Kilda, who was Saint Kilda... In fact no one ever was saint Kilda, since that person never existed.
And yet, there are stamps of 'saint Kilda' ...
A bogus issue once more, and once more we have to go to the UK, Scotland in particular.
Saint Kilda does exist, it's an archipelago in the North West of Scotland.

The largest island is Hirta, whose sea cliffs are the highest in the United Kingdom. The islands are administratively a part of the Comhairle nan Eilean Siar local authority area. St Kilda was permanently inhabited for at least two millennia, its population probably never exceeding 180 (and certainly no more than 100 after 1851). The entire population was evacuated from Hirta (the only inhabited island) in 1930. Currently, the only year-round residents are defence personnel although a variety of conservation workers, volunteers and scientists spend time there in the summer months.

The name of St Kilda might come from the old Nordic language :  sunt kelda (sweet spa)
Stamps were issued by the Post Office depicting St. Kilda in 1986 and 2004.
Funny thing, since the sheetlet I got in my collection was cancelled in December 1969).

St Kilda was also commemorated on a new series of banknotes issued by the Clydesdale Bank in 2009.

St Kilda sheetlet

Microstates : 08 Sanda Island (bogus)

I do love Scotland, and the Scottish people a lot.

But when it comes to cinderellas, they are truly very active in issuing bogus stamps.

See : Pabay and Staffa.

Next one in the row, is Sanda Island.
Sanda Island is a private owned island, on the west side of Scotland. It's located south-east of the famous Kintyre peninsula. Where the even more famous Mull of Kintyre can be found. 

Mull of Kintyre was one of the first four lighthouses to be established by the Northern Lighthouse Board in 1786 (although the current tower was built at a later date in the 1820s to a Robert Stevenson design).

The lighthouse is reached by a very winding road down a mountainside. There are great views over to the coast of Northern Ireland.

Sir Paul McCartney even dedicated a song to this lighthouse. I'm not sure if "the long and winding road" was inspired by the same place or not. 

Back to the 'stamps'. Local stamps have been issued for Sanda since 1962. The stamps served the resident staff employed by the Northern Lighthouse Board, the owners and the many visitors to the island who wished to have their mail posted there, and carried to the nearest GPO post box on the mainland.

So in the most optimistic way, one can say that the stamps were used as 'local carriage labels' for a while.

According the website of Pabay (see earlier posts), no stamps have been issued by Sanda Island since 1986.

As an appetizer to start collecting the cinderellas of Sanda Island, a set of Moonlanding stamps.

3 stamps with perforation, 3 stamps without perforation, all dedicated to the first man on the moon, Armstrong.

If you collect space related items, then it might be something interesting.

If not, have a look at the Kityre website, the area is so much nicer then the stamps.

Microstates : 06 Pabay (bogus)

After my previous post on the 'stamps' of Staffa, i could not resist posting another amazing topic for collecting. The 'carriage labels' as they call it of Pabay. 

The Island of Pabay is located 2.5 miles from the village of Broadford on the South side of the Isle of Skye, off the West coast of Scotland. It is 360 acres in size, diamond shaped and predominately flat, the highest point being 28m above sea level with cliffs on the North and East shores.

Pabay consists of heath, dry grassland, herb marsh, salt marsh, woodland remnants and 75 acres of newly planted deciduous and coniferous trees, containing 17 different species. There are 32 different species of wild flowers, 49 different herbs, 40 different grasses, sedges, ferns and rushes. There are also numerous resident otters, seals, 32 breeding bird species and 72 non-breeding birds. There is also a large rabbit population and shrews have been seen.

And, believe me or not, other then the isle of Staffa, Pabay does appear to have a mailbox! At least that's what i discovered and here is the prove :

Apparently, Pabay has been issuing its 'carriage labels' since 1962.

Unfortunatly, my albums are infected with those bogus issues too.
So i can show you one of my proud 'collectors items' as well.

For those who are interested: http://www.pabay.org

Microstates : 05 Staffa (bogus)

Staffa is an island on the west coast of Scotland. It's part of the Inner Hebrids and it's located about 10 kilometres west of the Isle of Mull (western side of Scotland).

The name 'Staffa' was given by the Vikings. In old Norvegian it means 'stave' or 'pillar' as the basalt caves on the island reminded them of their houses, which were built from vertically placed tree-logs.
The island is only 200 by 600 meters and has no habitants.
In 1800 there were  three Red Deer on the island, later replaced by goats and then a small herd of black cattle. Just before the end of the previous century, all animals were removed from the island, to restore the natural vegetation.

The only 'touristic' attractions are the caves, of which the largest one, Fingal's Cave was discovered in 1772, by Sir Joseph Banks, on his way to Iceland.

And yet, the island happens to issue stamps.
They must be designed, printed, distributed, sold and used elsewhere, since no mailbox (not even mentionning the post offices) are found on the entire island.

For the admirors of bogus stamps, some examples of the cinderellas of Staffa.
Nicely cancelled CTO, by ... one of the goats on the island I guess.

Additional pics:

whilst going through my "to be sorted out" albums, i found some aditional stamps items of Staffa.
According the cancellations (and i presume they were printed in blocks of 4) i must still be missing 3 stamps items.