Kollectomania - Collectors Blog

Before the Penny Black. In the 13th century Henry I appointed messengers to carry government mail.  A public postal service was started in 1635 and underwent many changes over the centuries but it was prohibitively expensive for most people. By the time Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837 it would have cost two weeks wages to send a letter from Scotland to London.  In January 1840 a uniform penny postage rate was introduced and the worlds first postage stamp the Penny Black was issued on 1st of May 1840.

Victorian Stamps. Many people think that the Penny Black is the most valuable stamp in the world but this is not so.  The stamp that is generally considered the most valuable is the 1856 British Guiana 1 cent black on magenta which was last sold in 1980 for one million dollars and is now thought to be worth about three million dollars.  The Penny Black is not a rare stamp as there were 68 million printed before the colour was changed to red-brown to prevent fraudulent re-use.

The Penny Blacks were printed in sheets of 240 stamps without perforations so they had to be cut out with scissors at the post office.  If they were cut out carefully there would be four margins left around the design, which is most desirable for the collector.  Stamps with less than four margins are worth less.  The letters on the bottom corners of the stamp designate its position in the sheet which had twenty rows of twelve.  The top row went from AA then AB and on to AL and the next row would go BA to BL and so on to TA to TL.  This applied to all other issues of stamps with corner letters.  When printing plates wore out or broke new ones were cut which resulted in slight differences in the design so that it is possible to work out which plate a stamp has been printed from.  Many later stamp issues had the plate number incorporated into the design.  Look out for the 1858 Penny Red ‘plates’ that have the plate numbers, from 71 to 225, in the design on either side.  These are popular with collectors as most of the stamps can be bought cheaply to build up a collection of all the different plate numbers and as some of the numbers are scarcer, and so more valuable, there is always the anticipation of finding a valuable number when sorting through a quantity of these penny plates.

There are a number of stamps to look out for, particularly among the older issues, that have tiny differences between similar stamps which make a great difference to the value.  There can be differences between the designs, shade of colour, number of perforations, watermark, type of paper, surface coatings, printing process, etc.  One of the victorian stamps, for example, is the penny lilac of 1881which has a design incorporating a run of white dots around each of its corners: count the dots on any corner and if there are 16 dots it is worth about £1 mint but if it has 14 dots it is worth about £150.   Another is the 5d value of 1887 that was printed from two slightly different dies.  If the stamp has tiny vertical lines between the ‘d’ of 5d and the frame it would be worth about £35 in mint condition but if it has tiny square dots it would be worth about £500.  Collectors eagerly sort through such stamps in the hope of finding a valuable one but they are only lucky occasionally.

King Edward VII. There is just one basic set of stamps for the reign of Edward VII but it is very complicated as there were three different printers, numerous colour shades for each value, different perforations and some on chalk surfaced paper.  For the beginner it is probably best to collect one of each value and colour without trying to sort out the different printings, etc.  This would give a basic set of 15 values from ½d - 1/- plus 4 high values 2/6 - £1.  The first stamp booklets were also issued during this reign in 1904.

King George V. The stamps of King George V have several sets of low value definitives ½d - 1/- with different printing methods, designs, watermarks, etc.  The high values 2/6 - £1 have a design showing britannia riding a team of horses in the sea and are generally referred to as the ‘Sea Horses’.  These were printed by three different printers which results in slight differences and one set 2/6 - 10/- was re-engraved in 1934, so that there are four sets to collect. This reign also saw the first comemmorative stamps to be issued, starting with a two value set to comemmorate the opening of the 1924 British Empire Exhibition.  This was followed by a similar set for the 1925 Empire Exhibition, then a set of five stamps for the Postal Union Congress (PUC) in 1924 and finally a set of four to comemmorate the 1935 Silver Jubilee. The PUC set has four low value stamps and a £1 value which is the most expensive British comemmorative stamp at around £750 mint and £400 used.  So most collectors only  buy the low values that cost about £15.

King Edward VIII. The uncrowned king who reigned for eleven months.  There is just one set of four  stamps ½d - 2½d for this reign.  Many people think they must be very valuable because he was never crowned but this is not so as the set only costs about 40p.  On these stamps the crown is positioned behind the King’s head rather than on or above the head as with all the other monarchs.  These stamps are also available with inverted or sideways watermarks and as booklets.

King George VI. Building a collection of King George VI stamps is quite straightforward for the beginner as there are no difficult colour shades or printings to identify and they are all relatively cheap except for one stamp. There is a set of definitives to 1/- that was issued in 1937 and had the colours of the lower values changed later on. There is a high value set of six stamps from 1939 that includes a 10/- value in dark blue that is expensive in mint condition so making the whole set expensive. There is another high value set from 1951 that is much more affordable.  There were seven comemmorative sets issued during this reign including one for the centenary of the first postage stamps, the 1948 olympic games and the 1951 Festival of Britain.

Queen Elizabeth II. More stamps have been issued during this reign than any other with hundreds of commemorative sets and many definitive sets.  The early low value definitives are refered to as ‘Wildings’ because the Queen’s portrait is from a design by Dorothy Wilding and later issues are refered to as ‘Machins’ because the portrait was designed by Arnold Machin.

During the 1950’s the Post Office was experimenting with automatic letter sorting machines and issued some definitive values with graphite lines printed on the back that could be read by the machines.  In 1959 they issued the first stamps with phosphor bands printed on the front for machine reading.  The phosphor bands are printed on all stamps today, except the high values.  The phosphor bands can be difficult to see but can be seen best by holding the stamp flat at eye level so that light shines on the surface then one or more vertical bands will show in a slightly different texture.  Most of the stamps issued during the 1960’s came with and without phosphor, with the phosphor ones usually worth a lot more than the ordinary.  With modern stamps many are printed with all over phosphor or phosphorised paper which is difficult to see without the aid of an ultraviolet lanp.

During the 1960’s and 1970’s numerous comemmorative stamps were found with printing errors, especially missing colours.  There were birds without legs, a post office tower stamp without a tower, a red cross stamp without a cross and many with the Queen’s head missing.  There were so many errors during that period that it was joked that you had a rare stamp if there was nothing wrong with it.

Collecting First Day Covers. A first day cover is basically an envelope with a postage stamp or set of postage stamps affixed that have been postmarked on the first day that the stamps were issued.  For most stamp issues special covers (envelopes) are available printed with an appropriate picture and text.  Whenever possible you should collect these illustrated covers rather than plain covers that are generally of little value.  First day covers (FDC’s) are more desireable and valuable if they do not have a handwritten or typed address; unaddressed is best or lightly pencilled address or small sticky label.  The exception would be for pre-1950 FDC’s as most are only available with handwritten addresses or on plain covers.  Special cancels (postmarks) are usually available that can greatly increase the interest and value of the cover like world cup stamps cancelled WEMBLEY, royal wedding stamps cancelled WESTMINSTER ABBEY or Christmas stamps cancelled BETHLEHEM (in Wales).  You should be aware of commemorative or special event covers that are not to be confused with first day covers.  These are usually to celebrate an event like the opening of a new bridge or the 150th anniversary of the fire service and would use an appropriate cancellation and a stamp that may have been issued years before.

Appart from the stamps, many collectors are also interested in collecting stamp booklets, PHQ cards (postcards of the stamps), postal history (usually envelopes with old postmarks), first day covers or first flight covers.

The bit on the end. I remember in 1966 after England won the world cup, the Post Office announced that they would take 12 million of the 4d value of the world cup stamps and overprint them with ‘ENGLAND WINNERS’.  Everyone who knew much about british stamps knew that they would be very scarce as most low value comemmorative stamps were printed in quantities of about 150 million.  As soon as post offices opened on the day of issue there were queues of speculators all trying to get as many as they could and fights broke out in several post offices as quantities were restricted.  Every post office had sold out by lunch time that day then the value of the stamps increased rapidly. Within a day the stamps were selling at 10/- each or £60 for a sheet that had cost £2.  After that the price gradually dropped and today they sell for about 15p.

Copyright Richard Farrow 2008.   This article may be copied in part or in full if acknowledgement or a link back  is given to our online store www.kollectomania.co.uk the online vintage collectables shop.