A Service Dog gives a person with a disability independence. Never approach, distract or pet a working dog, especially when (s)he is in harness. Never be afraid to ask questions to the handler (parent).
22 Mar 2014
06:00:29pm

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I came across this stamp today that has vertical black bars on the reverse side. Can anyone tell me what they mean (if indeed they have any importance at all)?

drkellyfleming.ca

A Service Dog gives a person with a disability independence. Never approach, distract or pet a working dog, especially when (s)he is in harness. Never be afraid to ask questions to the handler (parent).
22 Mar 2014
07:08:53pm

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re: Vertical Bars on QE II Definitives?

Thanks

drkellyfleming.ca

A Service Dog gives a person with a disability independence. Never approach, distract or pet a working dog, especially when (s)he is in harness. Never be afraid to ask questions to the handler (parent).
22 Mar 2014
10:19:05pm

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re: Vertical Bars on QE II Definitives?

So just use my UV light to see whether it is "a" or "ap"?

I've got to start looking more closely at some of the stuff I put up in my books. I've probably got some buyers that sit there with a grin on their faces thinking "what an idiot she is, $0.05 for a stamp that catalogues ..." It's that why people keep coming back to me? Lol

Thanks for the advice guys - I'll check it out!

drkellyfleming.ca

Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
23 Mar 2014
03:29:38pm

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re: Vertical Bars on QE II Definitives?

During the early '60s, when I went to sea, I returned to the stamp hobby as so many others have done. It was a good way to wile away the hours between watches and avoid getting into trouble when in distant ports.
On one long trip I begun to clean and sort a large accumulation of the Wilding Series that I had bought somewhere. I had begun to take my albums along with me, so on this trip as we were crossing the Pacific from Panama to the Far East ( Actually the distant and often mysterious Far West) I started working on this set. It didn't take long to assemble the basic color/value stamps leaving me a large pile to dispose of.
As I was about to toss all the extras into the world's biggest disposal bin (An open porthole) the ship's radio officer stopped by my room. We had become friends and he had shown me his collections of US Airmails and classic Newfoundland stamps one evening.
That afternoon, he noticed the big piles of stamps and pointed me to the different watermarks and the possibility of there being graphite lines on the reverse. When he left I went back through the waste can to start all over. That is how I started my Wilding pages.

I'd suggest, at the least, holding the on-paper stamps because every so often you will discover that there is some minor variety of a common stamp that you were not aware of, and being able to dig back through such accumulations seeking that elusive variation once you know what it is, can be rewarding. Or soak them clean so that you can further explore what is a very interesting series.
The British "Wildings" of Queen Elizabeth, 1953 to about 1967, can absorb a collector for many hours.
There are three basic sets, differentiated by water mark, the St Edwards Crown, the Tudor Crown, and the Multi Crown, but then the watermark may also be inverted, or even sideways pointing left or right. The last set with the multi crown may have the mentioned graphite lines on the reverse, or phosphor bands on the front, or even a few with both phosphor and graphite lines. That means that you can find examples with an inverted or a sideways watermark, one or two graphite lines on the rear and one or two phosphor bars on the front.

Then most of these also exist with broad inked bars on the front to show they were used by Postal Training facilities.

Just these major varieties of the common Wildings can fill several album pages with about 170 stamps.
Because the graphite line "experiment" failed, the remaining blank sheets were used with no regard to the placement of the black lines, so some exist with one, two or three graphite lines and they may be placed to the left side, right side or down the center.
The Red Wilding also was reprinted recently as a part of a celebratory souvenir sheetlet and is a 1st NVI with what the Brits call the "Wonkie" watermark meaning diagonally.

Three souvenir sheetlets have been printed in recent years with the basic Wildings and decimal values.

Then there are Wildings that were overprinted for use in Tangiers or Morocco, Kuwait or Bahrain and several that were given decimal values and issued on small panes.

So whether you simply post them inexpensively in approvals or decide to soak and examine them so that you may discover the occasional gem is your decision. That is a time consuming effort with no guarantee of monetary value. But for me they remain one of the most involved and attractive sets.
Oh, and due to the printing process that was used, there are many minor flyspeck varieties that are displayed in the Gibbons Specialty catalog.