New Zealand: Chalons - 1855-1873

Been buying up a few new cancellations over the last month and will post some groupings later when I have completed the pages.

A couple of Numerals from Dunedin and Oamaru

The "02" of Otepopo changed to Herbert 1875

The "0.37" of Mount Ida

The 0.57" of Morven Hills on a SG.130 1871? (closed about 1867) was it used at Kakanui (Meheno with the "0.64"

Interested in anyone's knowledge on the "0.57"

Regards Andrew

That is great Andrew. That is the first time I have seen a PB cancellation, in red, on a Chalon before. And a Richardson to boot!
Nice find (jealous) ...

Dave

Thanks Chris.

I have had a couple of nice finds lately.

That SG96a was, to me at least, not an SG115 as soon as I saw the pictures. Obvious lack of a 'Star' watermark was the 1st thing noticed followed by the whiteness of the paper.
I was a little dubious of the lack of wear to the right of the Queens head, but now assume that this copy must be an early printing in 1863.

Of course there is always the prospect that the dealer had the right description, but had posted the wrong image. SO you never know until it is in your hot little hands :-)

I bought a nice 4d Rose perf 12.5 SG119 from a French dealer recently. It had a BIN price of 10 euro's. The description had it as a perf. 1d Red, SG110. Again, my thought was that he had mixed the pictures up.
And again I was a little surprised when the 4d Rose arrived.

It is all part of the game. It works in reverse as well. You buy stuff expecting better, and get 'worse' !!

As to dealers on eBay, and other platforms, yes ... some (quite a few) exhibit dubious ethics. Caveat Emptor - Buyer beware !!

Dave

Another item received in recently (amongst a bunch of others) was this one :

SG98 1864 Davies 'NZ' wmk 2d blue imperf.



The nice thing about this one is that it has the 5/Otahuhu/A postmark of the British Military Camp in Otahuhu (South Auckland).

At the same time as the American Civil War (early to mid 1860s) there were skirmishes between the occupying British forces and the local 'Maori' owners of land.
Otahuhu was a military encampment based along the nearby Great South Road, which was built and used to move between Auckland and the Waikato.

Various other military encampments were established temporarily around this area and are a collecting sideline in their own right.
It is a fascinating slice of NZ history (that isn't much talked about!!).

Dave

Hi Dave

SG96a mint, what a ripper, well done.

Also great to see so many cancellations. I don't have many, but have found this one.

I believe it is "023" of Clyde ( formally Dunstan, changed to Clyde on 22 May 1865 )

I totally agree with all the comments on ebay. There is obviously a group of us that surf ebay looking for the unusual of different "Chalon" and there is definitely a lot of rubbish and mis-identified stamps. This does not surprise me as there is so many variants in the Chalon issues. It is becoming alot harder to find and win stamps on ebay and I am surprised at the prices realised for some. There are still quite a number of people out there enjoying the collecting of what I believe are one of the very iconic and collectable issues in the world.

I picked this up this stamp a while back in a group of 4 on ebay foe $47au bucks "NEW ZEALAND 1855 CHALON HEADS USED ( 4 )" I need to get it certified but I believe it to be an SG.32, as could be seen from the back scans of the 4 perforated stamps was the paper very different to the others and no watermark was evident. The only perforated 6d unwatermarked stamp is a SG.32. It is definitely perforation 13. being a sqart stamp and the colour along with the partial manuscript all leads me to believe it is genuine. Time will tell when the experts look at it.





Regards Andrew

Ok. I found one - but they are very scarce!!

Spink Shreves Joseph Hackmey Sale Part 1 - New Zealand Chalons sale 2009

6d. pale brown, a bright shade with the perforations intact all round, so seldom the case with this delicate stamp, cancelled "17" and of very fine appearance. A very fine example of this exceptionally rare stamp, only a handful examples of which exist. Sc. 9d; S.G. 32, £6,500.



Est. $4,000-5,000



SOLD for $3,250.00

So, it will be like an SG13/14 but perf 13.

Dave

Lovely examples again Grant. Gosh you have some lovely stuff there :-)

That 1st 6d brown is really nice, as is that cover.

Keep 'em coming

Dave

And a perf. set of Davies perf.12½ from the 1864-71 series :




Dave

Dave

I only have a couple of SG.5s
The first is a certified CP A2b(1)




The second I believe to be a CP A2b(2)



Provided for interest sake it may help you. (Side by Side)


Regards Andrew

 skid
René
Canada

Thanks Andrew for your two SG5's above.

The first one is oxidized so may need a dip in 'Hydrogen Peroxide 3%' for a bit to get rid of some of that discoloration and to bring 'up' the true color. It is a very nice stamp otherwise.

Dave

Nice items there Skid.

To me these 2 items you show us are 'wet prints' produced when the paper was a little too wet still when the printing was made. It gives that 'wet' look you see in your two above.
Conversely you can get 'dry' prints as well. These look 'dry' and lack detail. I have a pic of one somewhere I will dig out and show here later.

As to the comment you made regarding the possible 'retouching'. Only one of the Chalons was retouched - the 2d blue of the 1864-71 series.
That was retouched when the plate became 'damaged' due to scaling of the bottom third of the new plate. Around 1866-67.

Retouched examples of that stamp are very collectable as people like to 'plate' their stamps based on the 'retouching'.

Dave

Here are some S cancelations. Not sure if there is also a manuscript S or s 6 or a 9 on one of them