Lot 252 Great Britain #120b 2/- Milky Blue Queen Victoria, 1867-1880 Surface Printed Issue With Large White Corner Letters, A VG Unused Single No Gum, See Description Regarding Shade, Also Checked Under UV With No Signs Of Cleaning, Cat 24,000 GBP!

A VG Unused single of the 2/- milky blue Queen Victoria from the 1867-1880 Surface Printed Issue With Large White Corner Letters no gum, see description regarding shade, also checked under uv with no signs of cleaning, cat 24,000 gbp!. In verifying the shade for this stamp we looked at dozens of stamps online and noted that all of the other shades, being dull blue, deep blue and pale blue are either all much deeper than the colour of this stamp, or in the case of pakle blue, the shade is brighter. This matches up to all the examples of milky blue that we saw being offered for sale online, and it matches other used examples I have offered in the past. There is some very minor abrading of the colour, near the top of the portrait, so we checked for signs of cleaning. To do this we examined it under UV light, which would normally show any ink from a cancel or pen markings that have been subsequently cleaned, but could find nothing. My conclusion is that this is a genuine unused example of this very rare stamp, centered to the right, as if ofte the case with these issues. However, it is sound, with no fundamental faults.

Stanley Gibbons 2019 values this at $3000. The stamp offered here grades 58 as follows:

Centering/Margins: 30/70

Paper Freshness: 5/5

Colour: 3/5

Impression: 5/5

Absence of Visible Paper Flaws: 5/5

Perforations: 10/10