In 1893 the postal authorities of New Zealand tried a new approach to stamp printing. On the gum side of regular stamp issues they printed a series of advertisements for a wide variety of products: soap, foods, medicines, and so on. The ads were printed on panes of 60 stamps in three settings, using values ranging from the 1d to 1/s.

Collectors can find examples of individual stamps with adverts on reverse with a fair amount of ease. Here is a very nice block of four mint stamps that we currently have in stock:

Now just imagine the challenge of assembling all 60 examples of the advertisements for a particular setting! We currently have the extraordinary opportunity to offer three such panes for sale, each from a different setting. The stamps are all used, hence these panes are much less expensive to own than if they were mint. Here is the example showing Setting 3:

The settings can be distinguished from one another based on various criteria. The first setting shows ads inverted relative to the face of the stamp (for sideways ads the bottom of the ad is on the left side of the face of the stamp). In the second setting the ads are upright. The third setting is similar to the second, but replaces all the Cadbury ads with ads for Poneke products.

Ads were printed in different colors as well, and this can be helpful in identifying the setting for individual stamps. See the Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue for sub-listings of individual stamps with advertisements. The Campbell Paterson Catalogue of New Zealand Stamps is helpful for a more detailed description of the settings and panes.

For collectors of British Commonwealth Stamps, there are not many truly elusive stamps to pursue from the reign of Queen Elizabeth II. Scott #56A of Oman is an exception. The stamp is a watermark error variety with only 50 copies known, mostly used. Only one mint example has been found.

An attractive example of this great rarity has arrived in our stock, with a certificate of authenticity, light CDS cancel, full perforations and no faults.

Scott: Oman 54A
SG: British Postal Agencies in East Arabia 58a
To view the listing for this stamp on our online price list, click on the image.

We are pleased to be able to offer the advanced British Empire collector an opportunity to own this highly sought after stamp.

I’m beginning a new series of posts discussing some of my favorite British Stamps and British Colonial Stamps, based either on design or on general philatelic interest. I begin with a particularly elegant example, the King George V “Seahorse” design.

Of the many engraved British Stamps produced during the early to middle years of the British Commonwealth, the Seahorses of King George V are, in my opinion, among the most attractive. The Seahorses are particularly compelling for an avid collector of British Stamps because they allow several angles of study:

We recently purchased a stamp of the British Commonwealth that was so spectacular we felt privileged to view it, and we are excited to be able to describe it here.  The stamp is Jamaica SG85a, a dramatic inverted frame variety of the 1 shilling value, printed in 1920, with a clear 1927 Kingston circular date stamp, and a couple of minor faults.  Here it is:

Having the opportunity to obtain such a rare and unusual item is one of the delights of our trade.  Buying the stamp at a good price and being able to offer it to an eager customer makes the experience all the more rewarding.

The stamp sold almost immediately to a customer who had requested it on his want list.  Generally speaking, we serve our customers via our extensive price list, either online or by mail.  However, for our specialized and more advanced customers sending us a want list can be a good idea, even if many of the items are very rare.  We are always on the lookout for interesting British stamps with the quality and value that our customers expect. The more information we have about what you are looking for, the more likely it is that we will be able to find it for you.

Posted by Kathryn Wright

Greetings all!  Our offices are hopping with the recent acquisition of a large and impressive collection of stamps from the reign of King George VI.  The collection is a marvel of quality and diversity, with material ranging from the basic to the rare, both LH and NH, including many varieties and an impressive range of Bermuda and Leeward Islands Keyplates.  We will be offering items from the collection in our usual manner, as carefully described individual items on our website and printed price lists.  Much of the new material has already been added, with plenty more to come.

The purchase of this collection has increased the breadth of our stock of Keyplates enormously, and we are planning to experiment with different options for offering these fascinating issues to our specialized collectors.  For example, we will be putting together small lots featuring an array of printings and positional flaws for certain denominations.  We will also be offering advice and supplemental information to collectors new to the topic of Keyplate positional flaws.  Using the definitive Dickgiesser reference work full of detailed illustration, we will provide documentation for each of the flaws we offer along with the stamp.  We hope that this will encourage more collectors fond of the George VI era to expand into this highly rewarding arena.  For more information on the Keyplate issues of Bermuda, please see our previous blog posting HERE.

Clients are encouraged to contact us with King George VI want lists, questions about the new material, or queries regarding ways to expand your collection in new and interesting ways.

– Regards to all from Aron and Kathryn at Aron R. Halberstam Philatelists, Ltd.

Well, the Blog has been somewhat neglected recently, as Aron has been caught up in a long stretch of adding substantially to the inventory.  Processing the new purchases can be time consuming: they must be looked over for acuracy and quality, added to the database, scanned (in some cases), and finally added to the online price list. 

Our most recent update, just completed today, includes some very nice stamps of British Africa from the reigns of Queen Victoria to King George V.  Some examples: several Basutoland items, including NH sets and Used singles; several singles and sets of Gambia and Gold Coast; the Kenya George V pictorial set, Scott 46-59; the Sierra Leone George V set Scott 103-119 LH; the Tanganyika giraffe set, Scott 10-29, available LH and also overprinted Specimen; the first Queen Victoria set of Zululand, Scott 1-10 very fresh and LH; and so on!  Please go to our Recent Acquisitions Online Price List or narrow down your criteria on the Search page for more detail.

Lastly, Aron and I would like to extend to all our philatelic friends and clients a very happy holiday season and our best wishes for a healthy, productive, prosperous New Year!

Sincerely,
Kathryn Wright

Ok, I give up on allowing comments on our blog.  We are inundated with ‘comment spam.’  I never knew it existed until I started working on this blog.  Aron and I like the idea of facilitating a forum for collectors of British stamps and British Commonwealth stamps to discuss various issues, but in this era of constant spamming it doesn’t appear to be practical to make this the place to do it.  Nevertheless, we heartily encourage any of our readers to send us an email on any issue we ever happen to bring up here, or to make suggestions or request information which might be of general interest to our friends and clients in the realm of British stamps and philately.  Thanks as always for your interest.

Posted by: Kathryn Wright

Just a quick note today.  It’s a challenge keeping the blog fresh with all the work piling up on our desks.  Aron has been buying a lot of new material lately!  We’ve added a great many Kangaroo and George V portrait issues of Australia just within the last few days.  I enjoy looking at the stamps of Australia.  The watermarks and shades are usually fairly clear (gratifyingly so!) and the design of the kangaroo surrounded by the outline of Australia itself is very clever and pleasing.  To take a look at the most recent additions, click on the Recent Acquisitions link or go to the Search page and narrow down your search in any number of helpful ways. 

Regards to all,

Kathryn Wright
Philatelist

Developing a website with an enormous database like ours was not easy.  Just as it is very challenging to figure out how to organize the stock in the office, determining the best way to give customers access to our stock online required creating a variety of sorting/searching/listing options while preserving the structure of the database we were already using for ourselves. 

We are aware that the online ‘Price List’ page does not serve every customer’s needs.   Indeed, if you are looking at our website on a regular basis it is not especially useful to go back to the ‘Price List’ page each time, as the options there are not finely tuned to the specific needs of regular customers. 

Instead, the most convenient way to look for new items is to go to the ‘Search’ page  and choose to view only items listed within a given time period (the choices are 5 days, 2 weeks, 6 weeks, and 6 months).  Since we usually update our list once every 7-10 days choosing the 5 day option might not provide you with all of our newest items, but for some very active buyers it has proved convenient.  Any of the other options will narrow down the list significantly and still show the ‘freshest’ stock we have.

For specialized collectors, be aware that you can choose as many criteria on the ‘Search’ page as you like.  So for example you can select ‘NH items only’ and only items added within the last 6 weeks and only items from the British Pacific (in the Region field) or whichever region or country you may prefer to view.  There is also a ‘Keyword’ option with choices like Airmail Stamps, Officials, and so on.  Getting to know how the ‘Search’ page works best for you will significantly reduce the number of irrelevant items in the resulting list.

I am always eager to help our clients better understand how our website works and to  hear any problems or questions that arise.  Coming up I’ll add a new post regarding the ordering page which may also prove useful.

Happy Searching!

posted by: Kathryn Wright

I have wanted to write on the topic of the many shade varieties of the Falkland Islands for several weeks.  During the summer Aron acquired a very nice collection of Falkland Island stamps and I had the opportunity to comb through it and identify a great many items in the Queen Victoria, Edward VII, George V, and George VI issues.  It seemed like a perfect opportunity to write an extensive blog posting on the topic, but we were amazed and amused to discover that the newly added items sold so well I simply couldn’t imagine writing a description of particular items we had on offer without immediately needing to revise as they sold.  Clearly, Falkland Islands stamps are in demand, and it’s plain to me why that is.  Collecting shade varieties in older stamps is a challenging but rewarding task, and the Falklands issues have a very rich array of choices.  So I have decided to provide some more general comments on the topic below in the hopes of piquing interest and providing some tools and hints for current and future collectors of Falkland Island stamp shade varieties. 

Being a professional philatelist I have a fortunate advantage when identifiying shades, in that I can often look at a great many examples of a given value from Aron’s stock.  I also make frequent use of my Stanley Gibbons Stamp Colour Key (an absolute must-have for anyone interested in identifying shade varieties).  Although the key is not necessarily an exact reference for each stamp it serves as a very useful comparison tool, in comparing not only the stamp to the pictured shade on the key, but also in comparing one shade on the key to another in order to narrow down the possibilities for a given stamp. 

Nonetheless, shade comparisons can be exceedingly daunting at times.  It’s not too hard to learn the difference between blue and ultramarine, but how to distinguish light blue from pale blue, indigo from deep blue, and so on?  It has taken me years of study to become comfortable with these subtle distinctions in shade, and even then there are often differences in individual issues that require that I wait for more examples to arrive in our offices before I can make a confident identification.  Needless to say, we only offer shade varieties for sale once we have reached such a confident conclusion.

If one is interested in acquiring familiarity with subtle shade distinctions in stamps of the British Commonwealth, putting together a collection of the stamps of the Falkland Islands is a perfect way to get there.  One would want to use both the Stanley Gibbons catalogue and Stefan Heijtz’ highly respected Specialized Stamp Catalogue of the Falkland Islands and Dependencies for reference. In the Victoria, Edward VII and George V issues you can learn to identify true Greens and Yellow Greens, true Orange and Yellow Orange (usually much paler), a full range of Ultramarine and Blue shades, and so on.  (On a side note, the highly elusive Reddish Purple variety of the Edward 2d and the Reddish Maroon shade of the George V 5 Shilling are so tricky they require the application of ultraviolet light to the stamp to see the difference, and so should only be purchased as described from the most reputable of sources.)

For the Falkland Island stamps of King George VI’s reign, even more expertise is often required to determine the many different printings of almost every value.  I have made ample use of the invaluable article available on the KGVI Stamps website, which you can view here: www.kgvistamps.com/articles/falkland/Falkland.html.  It is an exhaustive survey of the many different printings and offers all kinds of useful tips for narrowing down identifications based on secondary features, like gum texture and color.  While Stanley Gibbons lists a few of the shade varieties in the KGVI Falkland issues, most notably the difficult 5/s shades and the reasonably priced 1/s shades, there are many unlisted shades which can be found in the Heijtz catalogue and which make for an enjoyable hunt for the intrepid collector.

Our own stock of Falkland Island stamps is broad and ever-changing, as we buy and sell in this category regularly.  Please check our price lists frequently and of course feel free to submit a want list as well. 

Posted by: Kathryn Wright, Philatelist