Lot 411 Great Britain - Squared Circle Cancels SC#82 2.5d Ultramarine 1880-1881 Large Coloured Corner Letters, Imperial Crown Wmk, London, June 10, 1881, Plate 21, A VF Used Single, 2022 Scott Classic Cat. $70

A VF used example of the 2.5d ultramarine from the 1880-1881 Large Coloured Corner Letters, Imperial Crown Wmk, London, June 10, 1881, plate 21. 2022 Scott Classic Cat $70.

The information about the cancellations for this week's auction is taken from two sources, both of which are available on the Royal Philatelic Society of London's website. The first publication is titled: Barred Numeral Cancellations of London, by John Parmenter. The second is titled: Inland Office Cancellations 1844-1868, The Horizontal Diamonds, by Brian Smith. Because the emphasis this week is on the cancellations, rather than the stamps, some stamps may have faults that are not specifically identified where we give the overall grade of the lot as either "ungraded" or "VG and below" or any grade below fine. Where we are grading stamps as fine or better, and in many cases VG, we will try to mention specific condition issues. It was common practice in the late 1800's to make streamers out of penny reds, so pinholes are a common occurrence with the used stamps. Corner or diagonal creases are the next most common fault. Our estimates reflect these issues though, with most of our estimates being in the $1 range for common cancels, $2 for uncommon cancels, $3 for difficult cancels, $4 for scarce cancels and $5-$10 for very scarce to very rare. For posterity we do mention the Scott and Gibbons catalogue values, but these generally only apply in instances where the stamps grade at least VG, and in most cases fine. So, most of the values we state are estimates based either on the cancellations, the condition, or both. For fine stamps we use 50% of the Scott or Gibbons values in our estimates, and 25% for VG, and 12% for good.