We have been collecting stamps since
our school days. Just for a bit of fun and to justify the 'philately' subheading to the blog, I thought it might be a laugh to select our top ten favourite stamps taken from our own collections…
Our main interest is GB although we do collect other
countries, but not in any real depth. Our final list of top ten stamps include five
stamps from other nations, interestingly after we picked our selection we
realised all the stamps, with one possible exception, are definitives. On
reflection this is not surprising as we concentrate our collecting on genuinely
used examples wherever possible. That said, there are times when the odd mint
set is too desirable to miss, as you will see.
Attempting to select only ten examples, from what must be
many thousands of accumulated stamps, was much harder than we expected. Our
selection has been made purely on aesthetic grounds with no consideration given
to value. No particular preference of one stamp over the other is implied by
the order they are presented, as naming a single all time favourite would be
impossible. Tastes change over time and I strongly suspect if you were to ask
us to compile a new list, in a few moths time, it may well take on a totally
different look.
The stamps
Line engraved stamps have a special place in our collection. The
never-ending study of these issues consumes a good deal of our time. It would
be very tempting, at this point, to select a nice four-margin Penny Black
cancelled with a smart Maltese cross but instead I have decided to include a
Red Penny (as they were called at the time) printed from plate No. 93. The
classic design of these stamps, along with its black and blue acquaintances,
has stood the test of time. What makes this one special to me is its plate
position the corner letters are ‘R’ & ‘L’ – my initials.
The stamps of KGV provide plenty of interest for the
specialist collector. Shades, watermark and perforation variants abound. The
two values of the Downy heads issues have plenty of varieties alone. Here we
have chosen the later 10d Mackennal. Its striking colour holds up even today,
almost a hundred years after it was printed, presenting itself as a suitable
ambassador for this fascinating period in the history of GB definitives. Discussing
and deciding upon shade variations is always a good primer for a heated debate
in our house and I suspect we are not unique especially when the subject of
debate is hue.
Moving away from the GB collection for the next one.
This stamp is from one of Sue’s favourite Italian issues, the Italian
provincial occupations set of 1950. The stamp we have chosen to select is the
25 l. orange brown stamp, from of a "Girl packing oranges" Any of the
other values of this set would qualify as they all show various provincial
occupations. The interesting choice of subject for the 1 l. is a bit puzzling
as It depicts a motor mechanic. One can only assume that if you lived in Italy
post war that you took your car to the countryside to be serviced. Either that
or there were no cars in the towns! All the other subjects illustrated are what
you would expect to find in provincial Italy such as “Gathering olives” and “Ox
cart” etc.
Every now and then a set of stamps is issued that
catches our eye and that temptation to buy something from outside the confines
of our core collection takes over. This was the case when, on the 24th April
1987, South Georgia and Sandwich Islands issued its own set of definitives
following its independence from the Falkland Islands. These stamps are produced
in the UK and form part of the islands income.
This is an extremely attractive issue depicting birds of the region we
just had to have a set and do our bit to add to the islands economy! The stamp
shown below is the 7p value featuring a South Georgia Pipit.
Back to the GB now and the first of the Machin High Values was issued 21
months after the original Machin low values. Recess printed by Bradbury
Wilkinson these large format Machins proffered a simplicity and clarity that
was a perfect balance between traditional production and the modern clean lines
typical of the style of the day. I have always liked this set and it still
looks as good today as it did then. To showcase the issue here is a nicely
centred, mint 5/- example.
Here is our odd-one-out, the only stamp in our selection that is a
commemorative. The 150th anniversary of the penny black, back in 1990 - Was it
really that long ago? These stamps incorporate the Arnold Machin head of Queen
Elizabeth II, used for the regular issue definitives, with Henry Corbould’s
drawing of QV set behind to represent the time span. This really illustrates
how 150 years of design changes have proved that simplicity is the key to
longevity when it comes to stamp design. Here is a nice bright 37p mint stamp
to represent the issue.
This has been one of my favourite stamps ever since I discovered philately
as a schoolboy. It is also the reason I spent a good deal of my younger life
believing that Koalas were green! It is of course the 4d stamp from the
1937-49 Australian definitives. This set of stamps in isolation would make in
interesting study with lots of variations of perforation and watermark to
investigate.
We could not put a list of favoured stamps together without including a
Sea Horse. Finding nicely centred, lightly used copies with reasonable
perforations is hard work. The first one I managed to obtain as a schoolboy was
so heavily obliterated that I had to tell my friends what it was! This is the
best copy of SG 400 that I have been able to afford so far.
To round up our selection, here are a couple of stamps
from our 'other' collections. First, one from Sue's French stockbook. I have
always liked the stamps issued by all the Antarctic Territories (interesting
and by coincidence this is the second stamp in our list coming from that area
of the globe). The stamp shown is a
50c, Rock Hopper Penguins from the French Southern & Antarctic Territories
and issued the year I was born.
Finally to complete our selection of our favourite
stamps we have chosen a giraffe from a set of similar stamps issued by Nyassa
in 1901. These were the first stamps to be issued depicting these wonderful
animals. Thematic collections can be as diverse or as specialised as you wish.
Collecting animals is a vast area of interest. Specialising in one species
really cuts down the number of options and makes the good basis of a
micro-collection, but that is another subject…
Ralph.
Hi Ralph,
ReplyDeleteVery interesting Site, I to am a Stamp Collector and whould appreciate if you could let me know how you take the photos of stamps and the equipment you use.
Regards,
Mike
Hi Mike, good to hear from you!
DeleteThank you for your kind words. Individual stamps are not photographed but scanned on a black background. We use an Epson Perfection V750 Pro scanner and Photoshop to enhance the black background. We hardly ever process the appearance of the stamp itself, unless it is to remove dust captured during the scanning process. Large images are uploaded (Click on the stamp to see the larger image)and Blogger will then scale them automatically offering a choice of four 'standard' sizes.
We do photograph stamps, on rare occasions, if we are trying to show some kind of reflective detail such as phosphor bands or the iridescent security overprints of the modern GB Machins etc. as scanning will not show these details.
Kind Regards,
Ralph.