Liberia [1st Post]

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A year ago , I bought a beautiful lot of Turkish stamps from the Ottoman period...to complete the lot , there were some Iranian stamps from the early days, and two small envelopes with stamps... I saw they were from Liberia,but I didn't pay them much attention...last Friday I remembered them and today I like to present You my first Liberia stamps...

Most of these stamps belong to large series, and so just two of the series I present today are completed...if you take a quick look to Your Liberia catalog ,you will find that there are many overprints and Surcharges, and a large part of these stamps are part of this group...

These are stamps from the first design issued by Liberia ... it was used in several issues from 1860 to 1879...I present them here and now , but I didn't classified them , so they are not part of the collection yet...I choose not to classify them because there are many important details differing from issue to issue...

1) the thickness of the papers decrease from the 1st to the 5th issues...

2) the brightness of the colors also decreases from the 1st to the 4th issues... the 5th issue(1879)  is a "New Colors" series...

3) we have to know that in the 2nd and 4th series, an extra line 1mm apart from the exterior frames, exist... 

4) all the 4 first issues have only 3 values and the same 3 colors(6,12 and 24c)(red, blue,green)

5) we should take a good look at some internet sites about this group of series... You will see that it is a complex job to distinguish these issues...after seeing some sites I decided to stop the classification, and wait until I have more stamps of each value... it is the only way..! I leave here a link to a good site about Liberian stamps...
6) all the five series are [Litho] printed...it is notorious that the last one has a very poor printing...

looking now to my 3 stamps, I know that the 3rd is from the 5th and last issue, because it is a 1c stamp (this value dont exist in any of the 4 previous issues), and I also know that the 2nd stamp belongs to the 2nd issue of 1864, because it has the extra line bordering the exterior frames, and because the blue doesn't seem to me like a pale or faint blue....

If we look carefully to the designs, we will find that they are all different...the face is different , the engraving is different , there are several details of the boat that are different, and even the exterior (to the vignette) background is different... for experts, all these differences are important..

In the end , I only have doubts about my 1st stamp... I prefer to wait for more of these 6c stamps...

this is a stamp original from a "Various Designs" series of 1896 ,overprinted in 1900 with OS...I must say that the spacing between the two letters could differ from stamp to stamp...

1900 "Overprint OS on 1896 'Various Designs'" (15) Sc(O32)

this is another overprinted stamp, this time from 1903... the stamp is original from 1903 and represents the Liberty ..it is a beautiful design and very good engraving from Perkins, Bacon &Co.,London... the Overprint OS was done in the same year, but the original stamp was black, so we have the same design but a different color ....

1903 "Overprint OS over 'Liberty' (New Color)'" (1) [Recess (Perkins,Bacon & Co., London)] Sc(O43)

Another group of overprinted stamps and I am glad to notice that the designs and engravings continue to be very good.. I like specially the 2c and 10c stamps .. very good stamps!.. the overprint is again a OS, but this time it was printed obliquely... the original and the overprinted series are both from 1906, but we should notice that some of the values of the overprinted series were issued with different colors (10c,25c,30c,50c, for example..)..

1906 "Overprint OS on 1906 'Various Designs'" (13) [Recess (Perkins,Bacon & Co., London)] Sc(O46,O47,O48,O49,O52,O53,O54)

Triangular stamp with a very beautiful design .... The engraving and printing is again of Perkins, Bacon ....the original colors of this stamp were the 1909 black and purple ...in 1910 this stamp was issued in black and blue with an overprint OS and a surcharge '3 Cents Inland Postage'...this stamp could appear with perforation 12.5 or 14 or just rouletted  13...

1910 "Overprint OS and surcharge '3 Cents Inland Postage' on the 10c '1909 Commerce(New color)'" (1) [Recess (Perins,Bacon & Co., London)] Sc(127E)

When we entered the WWI period in Europe (1914/1918) there was only one series issued with original designs...the rest of the issues in this period were only overprinted and surcharged series of original stamps of previous years...in 1915 a series of 2 stamps was issued and printed by the Imperial Printing works, Berlin... about this series , SG tell us that "the 2c and 3c were the only two values to escape the British Navy's Blockade. The supply of the rest of the set , being addressed to the German consul in Monrovia, was not released to the Liberian government until after the war".... we have to know that Liberia was surrounded by Territories of the French and British Empire's and the Naval Forces of both Empire's were enormous if compared with those of Liberia (remained neutral until 1918, when the Country declares War to Germany) , so the trade with Germany (very active before the War) was very affected by the start of the War... 
we will find the rest of this 1915 series , only in 1921... I have some of these stamps to show , but in their  overprinted format...
the stamps remained  well engraved and with good papers and printing...nothing to say about it..
1915 "Various Designs" (2) [Recess (Imperial Printing Works, Berlin)] Sc(135)

These are some of the stamps we were talking about above...The designs are the same of the original series .but there are new colors to some values...we have again overprinted stamps with OS...
1921 "Overprint OS on '1921 Various Designs'" (14) [Recess (IPW,Berlin)] Sc(O116,O117,O118,O121)

To end this post , I have another complete series of Overprinted stamps...if you remember , the two first stamps were those issued in 1915, now with new colors... the 20c stamp was issued in 1921 , but also have new colors...
1921 "Overprint 'OFFICIAL' on stamps of 1915 and 1921 " (3) [Recess (IPW,Berlin)] Sc(O113,...,O115)

there is no doubt that Liberia has beautiful and well engraved stamps in this period of time...but what really called my attention was that first group of series with the vignette of Liberia...I think it is a demanding and "detail friendly" series.. I will try to get some more of these stamps ...

SeeYou