An Extra Line?!!

New Entries

I was preparing a new post for My "ArtInStamps" blog about an Italian Designer and Engraver who had a major role in Japan's Philately, when I first thought of doing this post about some of the Japanese classic stamps... I will talk of the "Cherry Blossom" series , of  the "Koban" Series and of the very famous "Chrysanthemum Series" ... in the end , there will be some more recent stamps from the 90's ....

 The first 3 stamps are from the 2nd main series of Japan--- the Cherry Blossom Series----. We can easily identify it by the cherry flowers present in each of the 4 corners of the stamp... the series was first emitted in 1872 with two issues in native paper, differing in the thickness of the paper and in the perforations...in these early issues of Japan , until the Tazawa series there was no use of Watermarks.....1st) the 1st stamp is the 1/2s brown variety printed in a hard native paper...this stamp can only be classified as part of one of the 1872 issues , because of the paper used in the printing and above all,due to the non existence of a small detail.. the designs included in this issues could present us the Imperial Crest and branches of the kiri tree (that's the case of the stamps presented..), imperial crest and dragons, or the Imperial Chrysanthemum...if you see clearly in this 1st stamp, there are something like two swords in the union of the two branches(in the opposite side of the Chrysanthemum).. and in the other stamps there is a small square with a Japanese Syllabic written inside..the syllabic could be presented in other places, but it's presence clearly indicates that the stamp is not from the first 1872 two issues... one point I want to highlight here is  the strange upper "s" that definitively has problems..! in any of the 3 catalogs I used , there is no reference to this small detail, so it must be nothing.. the SAKURA catalog , tell us about the existence of 3 different types for this 1st issues of 1872, and they differ in small details in the way the "N" is printed..(the catalog is Japanese, and unfortunately I don't understand if it talks about the upper labels or down labels, because the N look different in each case...)
1872 "Cherry blossom Series" (6) [Engr (A. Matsuda)][Recess (Matsuda,Tokyo)] Sc(9) SG (34a) SAK(9 ?Type)

These two other stamps were not issued in Native paper , but in foreign paper.. this paper is wove, laid or porous .... my knowledge of papers is not the best ( and strangely , is not getting better...) , but fortunately in both cases , I can get the right classification just by the color of the stamps... the only grey 1/2 s stamp with the 3rd syllabic is from the 1875 issue and also ' from the same harvest ' the violet 30s with the 2nd syllabic... I will show below one picture taken from an old 2006 SAKURA catalog with the 23 syllabics in english ... 

it is interesting to know that not every value have the 23 possibilities, but each value have their own syllabic possibilities, and some of them could reach enormous cv's... of course, as I said in previous posts , the general condition of the stamp is very important , and with stamps like these You cannot wait for something very different from zero, but they are sufficiently good to be the subject of our conversation.. from what has been said we can conclude that the number of possible combinations paper, syllabic and color is very large and this series alone is a good example of how interesting could be this period of Japan's Philately...
1875 "Cherry Blossom Series" (8) Sc(40,49) SG(66,72) SAK(41b,48d)

This is a 1873 Revenue stamp... the study of Japanese revenue stamps is somehow difficult , because there is no catalog of these stamps, and the only source of information about them is from the hard work of  a small number of experts that dedicated their time to the study of these stamps , and a large world of information and certainly a large amount of fun is waiting for those who pursue this field of Philatelic knowledge... I will leave here two links for you to see if you're interested or not in continuing with these stamps...
some basic information : pdf file 
More basic information : pdf file

I will now start with the presentation of some new entries to my Koban Series or just spare stamps of those series.. in each case, these are all stamps in much better conditions that the one's I have , so they will replace them in the collection... the perforations and the centering of the stamps is good in general (specially in the New Koban series..) , so I tried to take the scans with a higher resolution , because the stamps seem to me like good examples... in the scans we can see the differences in the backgrounds , frames and ornaments even if the main design (central ) is identical... As we know there are 3 Koban Series : The Old Koban , the UPU Koban and the New Koban ...I will present the stamps in this order...As I said in the beginning there was an Italian Designer that moved to Japan and rapidly gained great importance in the Japan's Printing Office... that Artist was Edoardo Chiossone and he was the designer of the 3 Koban Series...

When we talk about the main design of a Koban stamp, we are referring to the design inside the main oval or circular shape object in the center of the stamp... We can identify six different designs among the 3 Koban series...they are presented above and other values share one of these common designs...
Let us start by the beginning , with the "Old Koban" Series... like in many other Countries, to have a specialized or a less detailed catalog makes all the difference... In a general view the series have 17 stamps, but if We consider a specialized catalog we know that we will find many more....the series was first issued in 1876 , but there are stamps from this series that were issued only in 1886...we have to consider differences in papers and perforations...a difference in perforation could signify a large difference in cv... the color shades have great fluctuations through out the all series

I only have 3 stamps from the "Old Koban" series to present and unfortunately one of them is of dubious origin...Yes, the Brown 5s is almost for sure a fake stamp, because the printing is very bad, the postmark is not like the others, and above all it has a printing error (that I never heard from..!.)..

I have a small scan of this error ([Left]) , where we can see the superposition of another brown line (from another oval) in the main design... it is a stamp with many (too many..!) imperfections , so I decided to keep it as a fake... 
First we have the slate 5r and then the beautiful Prussian Blue 10s..
1872/1886 "Old Koban Series" (17) [Des (Edoardo Chiossone)][Engr (G. Furuya K. Ishii)(T. Saito)][Typo] Sc(55,59,62) SG(76,106g,86d) SAK(61,68,71)

now I have several stamps from the UPU Koban series that has only 3 values (1s,2s,5s) ... we have also to consider many perforation possibilities. The series was issued between 1873 and 1892..

 I have already this complete series in the collection , so the main focus of my attention now were the perforations, to one day reach the final possibilities of the series... the Green 1s is very damaged so I shouldn't 

have shown it , but here it is ; the blue stamps show us that there are several degrees of "dulness" in that Blue.. it is normal ,because the first issues of this series have dull colors and the latest brightest one's...
1873/1892 "UPU Koban" (3) [Des (Edoardo Chiossone)][Engr (G. Furuya K. Ishii)(T. Saito)][Typo] Sc(72,73,74) SG(113g,114h,115g,115,115c) SAK(78,79,80)

For the "New Koban" Series I have more stamps and a few new entries...

This "New Koban" series has 10 stamps, but from these I show , only 3 are new entries, the 8s, the 20s and 1y...in this series we also have to count with perforation varieties...All the 3 Koban Series are without doubts very beautiful... 

1888/1892 "New Koban" (10) [Des (Edoardo Chiossone)][Engr (G. Furuya K. Ishii)(T. Saito)][Typo] Sc(76,77,77,78,79,79,80,81,82,84)

The Imperial Chrysanthemum is the single motif that is common to all the stamps I showed today.. You can see it always at the top of the main central design.. it is a 16 petals Chrysanthemum ...for example in the last series we saw, we have a 1y stamp that presents a large Imperial chrysanthemum as main center design...it is now time to introduce the last series I have to show for now...

issued for the first time in 1899 , the "Chrysanthemum series" has 18 stamps and the Imperial Seal lies in the center of a Circular frame with Japanese characters that unfortunately I could not decipher or find the correct meaning in the Net...another motif I don't know the real purpose appears at each upper corner of the stamp.. I don't need to say that I don't know any of these things because my knowledge of Japan's culture is minimum .. I should know much more about Japan (one of the few places I would like to visit someday...) because it is for me an attractive Culture with many points of interest... if we take a closer view of the designs, we find that there are some subtle differences between the lower values (less than 5s) and the higher values (from 6 to 20s in our case...) both on the circular frame characters and on the external background... these stamps are all spare stamps...

In a future post I will return to the Japanese stamps of 1970 , 80 and 1990 because I have many still to classify... for now it is all I've got of new stamps from the Classic days of Japan's Philately..

SeeYou

  

advertising ??

New Entries

Well, I'm starting this post a little early than I was expecting (here and now is Monday, 18:53).. it is the second time I decided to do the post by sections.. I have only classified 3 stamps,but they are clearly from a well defined early period of the New Zealand Philately,so I'm starting now to do the 'talk' part before I enter into other more advanced periods of time...

 These are Newspaper stamps... stamps with this design were issued from 1873 to 1892.. the several issues differ in the presence or not of wmk, in the wmk itself and in the perforation...  I have only one problem with these two stamps : 
[Left] this stamp has a Star watermark and the perforation nearly 12.. these two characteristics put this stamp in the 1875 issue..
1875 "Queen Victoria" [Des (John Davies)][Typo] Sc(P3b)
[Right] and here is the problem.. this stamp doesn't exist!! it has no wmk, so it only could be from the 1873 issue or from the 1892 issue... but in all the stamps issued from 1873 to 1892, there are no Non Perforated stamps...! some Horizontally non perforated or Vertically non perforated stamps exist in vertical or horizontal pairs but in the 1875 issue, with Wmk.. the stamp appears to be from the 1892 issue , because it has a bright rose color, characteristic of that issue , but I cannot explain the non perforated margins..

These are two pictures of the same stamp.. Yes, the right picture represents the back of the stamp... I have heard of these stamps with advertisements in the back but I didn't have one until now.. the stamp itself represents another Queen Victoria portrait  and belongs to a series with several different designs (different portraits and frames).. to classify correctly these stamps with advertisement , we have to know the perforation and then look at the advertisement in the back to see it's color and finally choose what is the correct type of the stamp..(there are 3 types : this one is type 3) ) in this case , we have a perf 10 , mauve publicity and type 3 .. there are many, many possible options so it is desirable that we have one of those colorful things that allow us to do know the right colors present in the stamps... I have to say that all these combinations between the stamp, type and advertisement are only present in the SG Commonwealth catalog.. the others I have , mention only the existence of publicity in the back of the stamps, but nothing more.. but, of course they are more generalist catalogs, not specialized versions...
1993 "Queen Victoria" [Typo] Sc(61) SG(218j)

This is a Insurance Department stamp...there are 5 main issues of this design , from 1891 to 1947... they differ in the perforation and/or Wmk... I cannot see the wmk in this stamp , but a closer look to the catalog narrow the possibilities, because until the 1913 issue (3rd) the 1d stamps were blue colored.. so we have no problems with the Wmk (it is the same in all the remain issues..) but we have yet different perforations.. this stamp has 14x15 , so the problem now is to find the right color.. this is definitely a Carmine Pink stamp... we have finally 2 options and they differ in yet another detail... the paper (the 1913/1937 issue was printed in 3 different papers, all chalk surfaced , but with other different properties.. this is for me very hard to decide, because I'm still not very experienced with papers...so I will give one Sc code and two SG possible codes...) 
1913 "Insurance stamp" [Des (W.B. Hudson)(J.F. Rogers)][Typo] Sc(Cy13) SG(L25a)(L31b [1925])

now I have some examples of one of the most famous New Zealand stamps.. it is known as the 'Universal Penny Postage'...the designs seem to be identical , but after a closer look we soon identify several differences...[Left] this is a [Recess] printed stamp (from 1901 to 1906 we have [Recess] printed stamps, and from 1908 to 1926 there were several issues of [Typo] printed stamps...) this stamp present no Watermark ...
1902 "Universal Penny Postage" [Des (G. Bach)(G. Drummond)][Recess] Sc(105)

[Right] the [Typo] stamps from 1908 are redrawn's and if the overall aspect of the design isn't enough for us to distinguish them from the original 1901 [Recess] stamps, we can look to the lines of the globe (they are diagonal instead of vertical in the original issues..) .. but our 3 stamps are from the 1909/1926 Design, that bring us a new upper label 'Dominion of ' .. the rest of the design seems identical to the previous ones but with the diagonal lines in the globe.. several papers were used (usually known as Typography papers) and different gums also, so to distinguish the different issues in these 17 years, You have to be almost an expert in papers, and as we know I'm not one of them (as a consequence I will not show the SG codes [much more specific ] and only give the Sc code...)
1909/1926  "Universal Postage" Sc(131)

let us start now a brief passage through the Days of King George V and focus on his [Typo] printed definitive's of 1915/1919...first I have to say that the Yellow Green stamp it is not from this series , but it is also [Typo] printed and the design is the same (with a different background) , so I included this stamp in the image...there is another 1915 series that use an identical design ,but it is [Recess] printed...
all the orange brown 1.05d and yellow 2d presented are colored with different shades of the main colors...the series is not yet complete, because there is one more Grey black 1.05d ( the one that is missing has 2 diamonds in each side of the king's crown.. the one presented has only one ...) and a brown 3d..
1915/1919 "King George V" (6) Typo (Government Printer, Wellington)] Sc(144,161,162,163)

These are stamps from a pictorial series from 1935... some of the stamps like the 1d and 3d (and others that I don't have yet...) are really beautiful stamps... the brown 3d is for me one of the most well accomplished stamps, representing a Maori Girl.. (spectacular..!!) ..
there were two main issues of these designs.. the 1st in 1935/1936 and the 2nd in 1936/1942 ... they are different mainly because of the Wmk but some perforation details are also different.. both the series demand a lot from the collector to achieve a good classification of the stamps... New Zealand stamps are demanding for the collector.. if you have New Zealand stamps from the early days ,and you don't think yourself as an expert in things like Wmk's and papers,please think ,that perhaps it is better to leave the stamps for a future classification ,when you have achieved a higher level of 'stamp' experience..
Now I want to talk about the group of 4 stamps representing that strange bird, known as Brown Kiwi..the first representation of this bird in NZ stamps was in 1898, but these 4 stamps are from 1935/1942... there are 2 types of this design : 

 [Type I (Left)] the limits of the white 'Cumulus' cloud only 'descend' a bit at the right of the Palm tree, immediately above the middle of the Kiwi's back..(for a better appreciation, please see the 4th stamp...) ..some of the design details are somehow blurred..
[Type II (Right)] the boundaries of the white 'Cumulus' cloud almost touch the Kiwi's back and some of the palm tree leaves..all the design details are well visible...
As I said before the wmk is a decisive detail for the classification of these stamps.. I cannot see clearly the wmk's so the codes stay for another time and the stamps remain as "Need Wmk Detection' ...

to finish this post ,we are now entering King George VI reign and I have a stamp from the Coronation issue and 14 stamps from the Definitive series with the portrait of the King...as we know the coronation issue is similar in most of the Colonies and Territories of the British Crown, but it is always a very well engraved stamp and the printing is always very , very good..the definitive series is very beautiful and the engraving work is very well done by someone of Bradbury Wilkinson...the king appears in a military uniform, with several Military orders and honors in his jacket.. Inverted Watermarks are possible in this issue ( the series was issued in two different times... the low values until 3d , except 2d , were issued between 1938 and 1944...the other values between 1947 and 1952..)... in the scarlet 1d stamp,could exist something called "broken ribbon flaw" (if You see the cross that descend from the King's neck , imagine that the link immediately above the cross is missing [and the lines from the uniform's background appear..] , so the first white part of the necklace is not connected to the cross...)
in the larger high values stamps there are two types [Type 1) there is always a white 'Aura' present. where the background lines disappear -like in a small value stamp-  Type 2) the white 'Aura' is still present ,but faded and the background lines do not disappear... the two stamps I present are type 2..].. the [Recess] printing work in this High value stamps was done by De La Rue 1937 "King George VI Coronation" (3) [Recess (Bradbury Wilkinson)] Sc(223)
1938/1952 "King George VI portrait" (17) [Des (W.J. Cooch)][Recess (Bradbury Wilkinson) small values (De La Rue) high values] Sc(226B,227,227A,228B,258,228C,259,260,261,262,264,265,266)
well , this is the end of the post... in a future post I still have some health stamps and I want to enter the reign of Queen Elizabeth II...Without doubts, New Zealand stamps are very demanding and this was a post where several of my 'stamp' frailties came to the light...I have to dedicate myself to the study of papers... I have already a large quantity of the Portuguese "Ceres" stamps to initiate this study, but it will take the proper time ... 

Thank You again for your patience and.....

                                                                                  SeeYou