I have to agree, many can't keep up with the endless new issues and many set a cutoff point at decimalization or 2000 etc.

Just keeping up must financially restrain many from completing older sets of stamps.

You cant buy or bid as a guest though, only window shop.

If you join ebay you have to give name and address etc, it is a standard process that absolutely everyone that uses ebay has to go through.

Ah ok I though that you were trying to say that the missing part of the value tablet and blue line were caused by paper on the plate, I misunderstood I guess and thought that you were inferring that the blue lines were caused from that as well. The stamp shown could well have been bleached too, some...

Are you sure that isn't a blue crayon mark from a registered item Mike? The colour doesn't quite seem to match.

Here are the results of some of my personal experiments with household bleach.

You will see what is possible and how easy it is. These supposed varieties should of course be avoided at auctions.

Bleaching stamps is nothing new, Sperati was doing it many years ago.

The above should read, "but no, ivory heads appear most commonly.........."

The comma makes all the difference to the meaning.

Regular household bleach will create the *exact same* effects. You can either bleach the entire stamp or you can take a cotton bud, small artists brush or dropper and apply bleach to small areas to make a particular colour vanish such as the value table or make the value vanish etc. I conducted my o...

http://www.gbps.org.uk/boards/images/transferred/1390_1.jpg Robon as requested, scans of ivory heads in different stages. Stamps were not yet in circulation in 1820 and 1821 so I am assuming that you mean 1840 to 1841, but no ivory heads appear most commonly on the 1d red which didn't come into bei...

A very nice item indeed. Thanks for sharing.