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COMPARING EARLY BRITISH STAMPS WITH COMMONWEALTH ONES

Posted: Sun Jun 06, 2021 1:45 pm
by Wilding Mad
Looking at similar stamps from the British colonies
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I recently paid £4 for this pair of 6d Bahamas stamps in mounted mint condition that was issued in 1884 which equates to £2 per stamp.
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On looking at British stamps of around the same period of time the nearest one that I could find for comparison was the 6d dull green that was also issued in the same year. On looking at this stamp I noticed the enormous difference in price, for a copy in a similar condition to the Bahamas one it would set me back up to £400 or more ! Note the price on the Bill Barrell advert.
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WOW what a difference in the price !

Both stamps have the same face value and both stamps were issued approximately at the same time, so why oh why then is there such a vast discrepancy in the price between the two issues was a Bahamas 6d so much lesser than a British one ?

Another bargain purchase I recently made was an unmounted mint block of 6 of the 2/- Barbados Seahorse stamps (SG 227) first issued on 14th of November 1921 for the princely sum of £15 which gives them an average price tag of only £2.50 per stamp !
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The nearest British stamp that I could equate them to would be the later 1934 2/6d re-engraved Seahorse which currently retails in the region of around £76 each.
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it appears that there's a massive difference in the price between the Barbados and British Seahorses, and if it had been the earlier printing of the 2/6 Seahorse (around 1921 as with the stamps of Barbados) you would have been talking in the region of at least £220 per stamp or possibly more ! Britannia it would seem still rules the waves along with its stamps.

From my findings so far it would appear that a lot of older commonwealth stamps are currently cheaper than chips.
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Especially when you compare them against their British counterparts ie condition, face value and time period issued.

It's not just mint stamps that are affected, take for instance this 10/- Maltese stamp issued in 1899 that I recently purchased for £15.
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A British stamp with the same face value issued around that time would cost a lot more than that that was paid for the Maltese stamp, the nearest comparison I could get was the 10 shilling Edward VII stamp first issued in 1902 priced by Rush Stamps as being in the region of £180.
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Virtually everywhere I have looked relating to comparisons between British and colonial stamps that are in a similar condition, including face value and issue date, are faced with large discrepancies in the price structure between the two with the British ones miles ahead when it comes to evaluation by the market.

I realise that a segment of the differential will relate to supply and demand but with such a wide expanse in the price there is no correlation between the differences found, what's going on in the market ?
WM.

Re: COMPARING EARLY BRITISH STAMPS WITH COMMONWEALTH ONES

Posted: Fri Jun 11, 2021 7:04 pm
by Wilding Mad
Here's another one for the pot being a 5/- m/m Bahamas stamp issued in 1884 purchased recently for £22.
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The nearest that I could compare it with regarding a British stamp would be the 1883 5/- crimson (SG 181) recently sold at auction for $475 found on Shreves philatelic auction galleries.
Once again it goes without saying that the difference in price is ginormous.
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Another aspect relating to these older stamps is the fact that because of inflation over the years, the face value of them has risen accordingly and the value of the £ in 1900 is now worth the equivalent of £130 in today's money, therefore this should also be taken into consideration when assessing the value of some of these older stamps.

Talking about cheap as chips ! Here's another bargain worth it's salt and vinegar.
Back in the days of yore, in 1912 to be precise, the 3 stamps depicted below emanating from Southern Nigeria would have cost a person 8/6d to buy, and after equating it into today's money that would have cost the equivalent of £50-58 back then.
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I recently paid £6 for this trio, at a cost of only 11•86% of their original face value based on inflation over the years.

Check it out with the calculator devised by Kate Rose Morley to be found on the following site in order to see the different rates of inflation over the years. https://inflation.iamkate.com/

You may have some stamps yourself that you would like to check ?

It would appear that collectors of British stamps are being charged over the odds, or is it that these old colonial stamps are way underpriced and that inflation hasn't yet caught up with them ?

Perhaps someone in this faculty could enlighten me.
WM.