Lot 99 Great Britain SC#67 (SG#141) 2.5d Rosy Mauve 1873-1880 Large Coloured Letters, Large Colorful Letters, Orb Wmk, Plate 5, London District Diamond Grid Cancels, 3 Good/Very Good Used Examples, Estimated Value $42

3 good/very good used example of the 2.5d rosy mauve from the 1873-1880 Large Coloured Letters. Large colorful letters, orb wmk, plate 5, London district diamon grid cancels. #8 Tottenham, N, #29 Mitcham & #94, which is unlisted and has a horizontal crease. 2022 Gibbons Concise Cat. £255. Our estimate of the value based on the condition is $42.

A note about the grading of these issues. The plates were laid down generally with approximately 3/4 to 1 mm of space between impressions in most cases. If you look at several stamps that are poorly centered enough to show the adjacent stamps, you will see that the space between stamps is very low. The perforation holes themselves are almost 0.5 mm wide. So, because of this, it is not really possible to get wide margins on all sides. For this reason centering is not the main consideration for these issues. All VF stamps will have the perforations touching or just barely encroaching on the framelines on one or more sides. However, they will present as being well centered. Cancellations will be moderate and clear, as all the main cancellers at the time are barred numerals. CDS's are not the norm, and only occur where the postal cleark has not followed regulations. Fine centered stamps will have the perfs touching or very lightly cutting into the design on 1 or 2 sides, but the degree will be minimal. Cancellations can be heavy if the stamps would otherwise be VF, or moderately cancelled if the centering is fine. VG stamps will be obviously off centre, with the adjacent stamps visible in many cases. Heavy cancels reduce the grade by 1/2 a grade or a full grade, if the strike is smudged or not clear. Small faults, such as creases, short perfs, clipped perfs or thins reduce the grade by 1 level. So, in my descriptions, I will try to mention faults, but if I have a VF centered stamp with a moderate cancel that I have graded as fine, it is because there is a small fault. Colour is the other main consideration in assessing quality, in the sense that a fine or VF stamp will have good, original colour, and VG and below stamps may have colour that is faded to a more or lesser degree. We have been largely conservative in our grading, in the sense that we are grading many examples that are well centered, but with heavier cancellations as VG, when many other dealers would grade them as fine. For more information about these issues, read our blog post titled "The Surface Printed, Embossed and Bantam Issues of Great Britain - 1847-1901".

Finally, a note about catalogue prices. We have used SG Concise Great Britain Catalogue, which prices each shade and plate, as well as specific varieties. However, it does not provide separate prices for combinations of varieties. It is always understood that where Gibbons prices a variety like a plate number or inverted watermark, that the price is for the least expensive shade. So, where we have a variety with a better shade or watermark, we have determined a proxy value by adjusting the value of the variety upwards by the premium inherent in the better shade. So, for instance where the basic shade is 8 GBP and a better shade is 20 GBP, a variety that catalogues 10 GBP in the least expensive shade would be valued at 10 x (20/8) = 25 GBP.