Postage Stamp Chat Board and Stamp Bulletin Board Forum

What is the status of the Navigator imperforate sheets, perfed 'A99' with the wrong sheet perfing/upside-down perfing?

I saw many of these sheets that were deliberately perféd incorrectly. The operator of the perfing machine perfed mine and would not let anyone else use the machine.

BUT when he had a call of nature( or slipped out for a quick ciggie[ WARNING- Smoking can damage your health{ and your pocket}], people who had been watching him do( perforating the sheets) others, jumped onto the machine and deliberately put the wrong sheets in the machines or put them in backwards, thus creating mis-perf's.

Fraudulent printers waste, if you dont have them, rare and exotic if you do have them, and still valid for postage, unless the new restrictions on bisects etc apply to "private" perfins
Regards

I've sold lots of these over the years. Price varies from $100 a pair for fairly mild misperfs, to $300-$500 a pair for total inverted and/or reversed perfins etc, or even the wrong perfin shapes on the wrong sheets.

They were produced by Post Office staff in the main, and are thus as much an error as a imperf at side item like the 1914 1d Engraved etc.

David Maiden and Danny della Bosca from AP had a FIT when they discovered these staffers were producing these items at the request of collectors.

And warned them pretty heavily they wold not have a job if it continued. David would confirm this today I am sure if you asked him. He features heavily in my next "Stamp News" column actually, having run the massive "Olympex 08" in Beijing:

http://www.glenstephens.com/snseptember08.html

Nonetheless for the short time they were created, the staff were supervising the machine. And those staff were PO employees.

It was a large and complicated hydraulic perforating machine, and for health and safety reasons only trained PO staff were to operate it.

Here is a photo I took at the time, of a trained AP operator creating an "A99" perfin mini sheet.

They were done singly, one at a time, and collectors needed to line up to have them done, after buying first, the IMPERF miniature sheet.

This photo is from the magazine insert after the show, a detailed review of which is here:

http://www.glenstephens.com/aust99.html

David Maiden has confirmed by official letter that only 11,000 sets received the perfin at the show, and a further 4,000 pairs were sold by mail order:

http://www.glenstephens.com/letter.pdf

28 July 1999
Ms Jenni Gormley
Editor, Australasian Stamps Magazine

Dear Ms Gormley,

There has been speculation in some quarters (Stamp News, July 1999) regarding the quantity of
Imperforate Navigator Miniature Sheets, and the special “Australia 99” pefin sold by Australia Post.

Suggestions that up to 100,000 sets of the Australia 99 perfin were sold are simply incorrect.

The facts are quite different. Australia Post accounting records show that 30,033 sets of Imperforate
Navigator Miniature Sheets have been sold as at 23 July 1999. That includes sales at Australia 99 and
through mail order. As for the special Australia 99 perfin, as stated in the Australian Stamp Bulletin,
Australia Post’s policy was that only 15,000 sets of the imperforate sheets would receive the perfin.

Visitors to Australia 99 were to receive the first priority and, if the number of sets perforated at the Expo
did not reach 15,000, the balance would be supplied by mail order.

Australia Post records showed that 11,000 sets received the Australia 99 perfin at Australia 99. The
balance were sold by mail order.

It is true that, for a few hours during Australia 99, detailed records of the number of sets perfed were
not properly maintained. The figure of 11,000 therefore includes a small component of estimate. At most,
that estimate would change the figure by 200, either higher or lower.

Statements that up to 100,000 sets obtained the Australia 99 perfin are plainly at odds with the facts.

Another way to view the situation is to establish the physical capacity of the perforating machines at
Australia 99. It is the physical production capacity of the machine, not the number of people attending the
Expo, which is critical to an assessment of how many sheets could have potentially been perforated.

Australia 99 was open for 45 hours, ie 2700 minutes. The physical capacity of the perforating machine,
taking into account its propensity to malfunction during the first few days, would be approximately five
sets per minute. That produces a total potential output at Australia 99 of 13,500 sets; a figure entirely
consistent with our recorded sales of 11,000 sets perforated given that the machine was idle for long
periods toward the end of the Expo.

I trust that provision of these facts clarifies the matter.

Yours sincerely,

David K Maiden
Manager, Philatelic Group
.

For collectors who are having trouble following all the above - for "Australia 99" the PO issued these 2 Navigator sheets in 3 ways:

1. Normal perforated stock that were produced by the millions. Cat $12 the pair.

2. The same 2 designs issued IMPERFORATE so that collectors could take them to the special machine to get perforated and also get the "A99" perfin at left. these imperf min sheets had only 30,000 sets sold, and as 15,000 were perforated "A99", in themselves are quite scarce. The TOP 2 sheets show this type. Cat value of these IMPERF sheets is $A24 the pair.

3. The 15,000 sets that were perforated "A99" are shown by the lower of these 2 types in photo. ASC Catalogue value of the "A99" perforated sheets is $A120 the pair.

I sell MUH sets of all 3 types for $A80 to stampboard members:

http://www.glenstephens.com/specials

And there is this version nos 1 to 250 only

OK .. this thread is as good a time as any to have an educational session on these "A99" sheets.

Much of the info about these out there is second or third or fourth hand, and has generally never been documented, especially visually.

Being lazy, I have not touched my copies for 9 years until now, other then when clients asked about them specifically.

I was the most active buyer of these at the Exhibition, and ended up with by far the best stock anyone had or has of these interesting items.





I was at the huge show for all hours on all days, and Simon Dunkerley and I - a well known error specialist - were keenly interested in these perfins, and compared notes many times, as it was a unique experiment.

There were two large hydraulic machines operating. Side by side.

One with a perf head designed to punch the holes in the "square" design brown sheet, and the other with a perf head to punch the horizontal design stamp "blue" sheet.

I took this photo of the one above, where the female AP staffer was perforating the BLUE sheets only

The operator fed the leading edge of the sheet in, and when in position, pressed a button and GUZZOOOMMP down came the top perf head, and punctured the sheet. One sheet at a time.

This technique had never been in operation at any stamp show anywhere in the world as far as I know, and like all machines had it's shortcomings.

Several things were occurring.

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1. The machine did not puncture the sheet fully. See the large red rubber MALLET in photo above. That was there to thump the flat top of the perf head when this occurred, to ensure all the holes were punched through fully before removing it. On the first day the operators were not too fussed about doing that, creating these PART PERF errors. These below I sell for $A125 per sheet:





This photo above of one unit is over-exposed to show the error more clearly.

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2. The sheet was fed into the machine a little out of square (there was a guide grid template to assist them) so the perfin head did not strike accurately. The misperf can vary from being noticeably badly centred ($60 a sheet) to grossly off centred as per these 2 - price $125 a sheet. (Remember, a perfectly NORMAL "A99" perf sheet is about $30. )






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3. The sheet being inserted wrong way around. Fairly easy to do as the grid only had a key line for where to align the sheet, and no indication which way was up. Being unionised the staffers rotated every few hours, and often new staffers took over and glitches like this below occurred early in their shift. Quite striking visually, and these sell for $A200 each.






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4. The ones that WERE clearly "suspect" are shown below. Of course stamp collectors being stamp collectors they are by essence the priciest, being $250 each! i.e. taking a blue mini sheet and inserting into the brown sheet perforating machine or vice versa. Such sheets were done in the first few hours of the first day in the main, by collectors schmoozing the operator to oblige. At that point they had not been warned by Maiden they'd be in deep doo doo for doing this.

So one gets either a sheet with totally wrong shape perfins, OR a correctly perforated "A99" sheet got an extra wrong shape perfin like the one below. The situation waroff mentions I am not personally aware off, as there were always supposed to be 2 operators, one for each machine, and as they were hydraulic and complex, the public touching them was clearly not meant to occur for safety and insurance (and common sense) reasons.

Any "funnies" I bought were from collectors who had sweet-talked the operators.



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That pretty much covers it. A few other similar variants I saw, but they were few and far between.

All I do know is that visually striking perforation errors on earlier Australia stamps are often in the multi 4 figure $$$ mark, so it is often a decade or two down the track these kind of things get fully appreciated.

The fact remains that #1 #2 and #3 were created by Post Office employees .. no doubt WHATEVER about that, and I am aware of some of #4 from that source .. including the ones in my stock.

They are as much a Post Office produced error as a missing color or imperforate or double print.

Even rather minor and uncatalogued "kiss prints" are getting $A29,125 at auction in recent weeks, so that is a relevant pointer.

http://www.glenstephens.com/snseptember08.html

Stanley Gibbons makes clear mention of the items above existing in a footnote, and that will ensure ongoing worldwide demand for them.
.

Gees, I'm glad I have a few of the proper sets, done by the operator, correctly. Worth hanging on to. I just wish I had been sneaky 19 years ago.

Life is full of regrets Bill.