GB 'Ivory heads' on Queen Victoria. Should I buy these?

Machaggis52 · **Posted:** Wed Mar 21, 2012 02:45:36 am

I'm looking at these on Ebay, are they worth buying? If so, what is a sensible price?

Ten views and no opinions.

nieves · **Posted:** Wed Mar 21, 2012 04:22:36 am

What do the fronts look like?

Machaggis52 · **Posted:** Wed Mar 21, 2012 04:26:09 am

nieves wrote:

What do the fronts look like?

Sadly, no idea. Only the backs have been posted. Going by the sizes though, I doubt if they are 'four margin'.

chipg · **Posted:** Wed Mar 21, 2012 05:56:31 am

One more question for you:
Why would you want them?

There is nothing particularly unusual about the "ivory head." These are lousy quality stamps with middling copies of this "variety."

That could be one reason why there were so many views and so few comments.

dynamode · **Posted:** Wed Mar 21, 2012 06:29:41 am

They are worth what you want bid on them.

If you want ivory heads, regardless of the condition of the front, you will have dealers falling over each other to sell them to you.

If thats what you would like to collect, ask the question here. Post a wanted ad for ivory heads any condition and see what response you get.

Machaggis52 · **Posted:** Wed Mar 21, 2012 06:41:08 am

dynamode wrote:

They are worth what you want bid on them.

If you want ivory heads, regardless of the condition of the front, you will have dealers falling over each other to sell them to you.

If thats what you would like to collect, ask the question here. Post a wanted ad for ivory heads any condition and see what response you get.

Oh well, I won the auction at £5.50. In due course I'll post both sides. As a very very new entrant to the world of penny Red collecting, I'm interested in all oddities and varieties.

chipg · **Posted:** Wed Mar 21, 2012 06:58:06 am

Machaggis52 wrote:

As a very very new entrant to the world of penny Red collecting, I'm interested in all oddities and varieties.

If I were you (a loaded statement, if ever there was one), I'd be looking at varieties on the front of the stamp first. Some varieties you can look for:
Strange-shaped letters: (square-footed "J," "P" converted into "R," Inverted "S")
Doubled letters
Recut stamps
Guide lines
ray flaws
extended framelines.

If you put together a page of each, highlighting the varieties, you'd have a pretty solid collection. Ivory heads aren't really a variety, more of an oddity of the reactions between the paper, the bluing, and the ink.

I hope you have a copy of the Stanley Gibbons QV Specialized catalog. There's a ton of information on different varieties and the plates that have them. Once you have a good understanding of these varieties, you'll be on your way to being able to plate the stamps (given that you also acquire some good reference material).

Machaggis52 · **Posted:** Wed Mar 21, 2012 07:32:57 am

chipg wrote:

Machaggis52 wrote:

As a very very new entrant to the world of penny Red collecting, I'm interested in all oddities and varieties.

If I were you (a loaded statement, if ever there was one), I'd be looking at varieties on the front of the stamp first. Some varieties you can look for:
Strange-shaped letters: (square-footed "J," "P" converted into "R," Inverted "S")
Doubled letters
Recut stamps
Guide lines
ray flaws
extended framelines.

If you put together a page of each, highlighting the varieties, you'd have a pretty solid collection. Ivory heads aren't really a variety, more of an oddity of the reactions between the paper, the bluing, and the ink.

I hope you have a copy of the Stanley Gibbons QV Specialized catalog. There's a ton of information on different varieties and the plates that have them. Once you have a good understanding of these varieties, you'll be on your way to being able to plate the stamps (given that you also acquire some good reference material).

I have a total of 700 Penny Reds, bought in large lots. The majority are four letter varieties, with a 100 or so letters and stars.

Task 1. Sort by plate numbers.

I have a Gibbons concise at present. I'm on the lookout for a used copy of the specialised.

chipg · **Posted:** Wed Mar 21, 2012 07:46:36 am

Machaggis52 wrote:

The majority are four letter varieties, with a 100 or so letters and stars.

Task 1. Sort by plate numbers.

There's not a whole lot you can do with these. In the new QV Specialized, there are about 100 pages of listings for the blacks, blues, and reds with stars in the corners (imperforate and perforated). There are 7 pages of listings for the 225 plates with letters in four corners.

With the imperforates, there are lots of varieties from the plate-making process. With the perforated reds, there are paper, perforation, watermark, color varieties, in addition to the engraving varieties to study and collect.

Good luck.
As a side note, you can troll through the Phillips collection. You'd probably be most interested in Volumes XI to XXVIII: http://catalogue.postalheritage.org.uk/ ... itles.html
I only collect imperforate pennies, so can't help much in figuring out the "crinklies" (the ones with the bumpy sides). However, even with just these as my focus, and with only one position on the plate as an additional limiting factor to my collection, I'm managed to accumulate 90 pages of material.

Chip
http://victoria.cgpostal.com

dporter-stamps · **Posted:** Wed Mar 21, 2012 09:13:42 am

Quote:

I have a total of 700 Penny Reds, bought in large lots. The majority are four letter varieties, with a 100 or so letters and stars.

Task 1. Sort by plate numbers.

I have a Gibbons concise at present. I'm on the lookout for a used copy of the specialised.

Machaggis52, i have an old & well thumbed copy of the QV Specialist 11th Edition (1997), email me your address & i will send it to you, your in Scotland so postage isn't that bad.

vikingeck · **Posted:** Wed Mar 21, 2012 09:39:05 am

You want to see an "Ivory head" ?

That's the quality you want to find ! That's what I call an " IVORY HEAD"

Alex

Machaggis52 · **Posted:** Wed Mar 21, 2012 10:25:43 am

dporter-stamps wrote:

Quote:

I have a total of 700 Penny Reds, bought in large lots. The majority are four letter varieties, with a 100 or so letters and stars.

Task 1. Sort by plate numbers.

I have a Gibbons concise at present. I'm on the lookout for a used copy of the specialised.

Machaggis52, i have an old & well thumbed copy of the QV Specialist 11th Edition (1997), email me your address & i will send it to you, your in Scotland so postage isn't that bad.

Thank you.

Message sent.

Machaggis52 · **Posted:** Wed Mar 21, 2012 21:22:01 pm

vikingeck wrote:

You want to see an "Ivory head" ?

That's the quality you want to find ! That's what I call an " IVORY HEAD"

Alex

And you have been collecting Penny Reds for how long? How long did it take you to find that one?

I have been collecting Penny Reds for a month. Have read the posts on here, followed the links, read the articles and started to sort the stamps by plate. Then colour groups...

Forgive me, but I find your post a tad supercilious, I'm brand new to this. If you have been collecting Germany for a month, I could do the same to you, as I have, over the years collected perfect specimens. :-)

I don't want to make a big thing of this, but cut newbies who are keen to learn, a bit of slack. I posted the lot originally to get the benefit of your advice.

Edited to add:

That is indeed a very fine stamp. :-)

Global Administrator · **Posted:** Wed Mar 21, 2012 21:34:44 pm

vikingeck wrote:

You want to see an "Ivory head" ?

That's the quality you want to find ! That's what I call an " IVORY HEAD"

Alex

This one is not too shabby either!

The ones in post #1 are near worthless I'd have guessed.

vikingeck · **Posted:** Wed Mar 21, 2012 22:45:49 pm

Machaggis52 wrote:

Forgive me, but I find your post a tad supercilious, I'm brand new to this. I don't want to make a big thing of this, but cut newbies who are keen to learn, a bit of slack. I posted the lot originally to get the benefit of your advice.

Edited to add:

That is indeed a very fine stamp. :-)

[/quote]

Oops !! No need to get huffy ! Keep your shirt on!

There was no offence intended ! I just wanted to show what a good IVORY Head could look like and give you benefit of the advice you sought! I guess from the other responses which were posted before mine I'm not the only one who reckons the examples you asked about were a lot less than average .

Machaggis52 · **Posted:** Thu Mar 22, 2012 05:11:07 am

David Porter

David, my E-Mail system is not recognizing david[(at)]dporter-stamps as a valid E-mail address.

(Name and address removed by Moderator)

Please let me know the cost and your Paypal details.

Kinds regards

Jim

Machaggis52 · **Posted:** Thu Mar 22, 2012 05:13:23 am

vikingeck wrote:

Machaggis52 wrote:

Forgive me, but I find your post a tad supercilious, I'm brand new to this. I don't want to make a big thing of this, but cut newbies who are keen to learn, a bit of slack. I posted the lot originally to get the benefit of your advice.

Edited to add:

That is indeed a very fine stamp. :-)

Oops !! No need to get huffy ! Keep your shirt on!

There was no offence intended ! I just wanted to show what a good IVORY Head could look like and give you benefit of the advice you sought! I guess from the other responses which were posted before mine I'm not the only one who reckons the examples you asked about were a lot less than average.

Apologies, I suffer from a chronic back problem which is having a flare-up at the moment, and is very painful. Sorry, I am a wee bit short tempered just now.

Global Administrator · **Posted:** Thu Mar 22, 2012 09:21:05 am

McHaggis sorry to hear of your back, but posting your own full home address anywhere on the web is INSANE - IMHO, especially on board that gets a million hits a WEEK. If you are burgled next week of all your stamps, do not blame us. :idea:

And posting another member's email address is strictly against our privacy terms. You seem unaware that cannot be a valid email as it does not have a suffix. Luckily for you.

Please READ this as an example of what can occur when you foolishly plonk your address out there for all to see. Board direct emails are WHY we enable that function.

http://www.stampboards.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=35710

Which is WHY we have this excellent rule HERE - but there are always some who feel rules do not apply to them in life.

Some protest we have "too many" rules, but instances like that prove they are all there for GOOD REASON -

admin wrote:

19. Guard Your Privacy

Keeping personal information personal is a good tip. If you want to share your personal information with another member of the community, do so via e-mail, or not via the boards. If you DO want to post your email on a thread for any reason we INSIST you use this kind of disguised style - georgebush [at] aol.com as it will not then be "harvested" by spam bots trawling websites looking for the curly "(at)" sign, which always means a current valid email address - and then bombarding you with masses of Spam and porn etc. We get LOTS of such bots regularly trying to access this site. The same with posting your personal phone numbers - do NOT do it please - for your own privacy. Contact the other members via the safe and hidden private email system. Moderators will amend any posts that breach either of these rules that they see - with no notice.

http://www.stampboards.com respects members' privacy. None of your personal contact information or email address etc will be posted or visible on the forums unless you post it yourself. By signing up here you specifically AGREED to receive emails from us of any topic replies when you tick that you want those, and you agreed to receive the monthly newsletters and admin advices from us. Some members post up covers or letters addressed to them, showing their full name and address. We strongly recommend you do NOT do that - try and disguise that data. YOU are entirely responsible if burgled a week later. stampboards gets over two MILLION page views a month - you never know WHO is reading your posts - or for what reason. :idea:

Admin

dporter-stamps · **Posted:** Thu Mar 22, 2012 09:59:01 am

Machaggis52 wrote:

David Porter

David, my E-Mail system is not recognizing david[(at)]dporter-stamps as a valid E-mail address.

(Name and address removed by Moderator)

Please let me know the cost and your Paypal details.

Kinds regards

Jim

Jim,

Will post off to you tomorrow, i didn't get your message via stampboards. I sent you a message but maybe you haven't activated your email yet ?.

did you put .co.uk after my email address.

asmodeus · **Posted:** Thu Mar 22, 2012 18:05:44 pm

Here a nice strip......

hutch · **Posted:** Thu Mar 22, 2012 20:24:21 pm

OK, let's start out by saying that until today I had never heard of an Ivory Head!

After reading these posts, I'm assuming that it is a one penny red imperforate on bluish paper :?:

I went straight to my GB album and pulled out the only example I have. Not a very good one as it had a horrible sticker attached to the back...which I've since soaked off!...and I think it's affected the actual stamp but as a side note, I'd be very interested in knowing where the post mark is from!? Anybody know?

Thanks, Anne

Machaggis52 · **Posted:** Thu Mar 22, 2012 21:04:34 pm

dporter-stamps wrote:

Machaggis52 wrote:

David Porter

David, my E-Mail system is not recognizing david[(at)]dporter-stamps as a valid E-mail address.

(Name and address removed by Moderator)

Please let me know the cost and your Paypal details.

Kinds regards

Jim

Jim,

Will post off to you tomorrow, i didn't get your message via stampboards. I sent you a message but maybe you haven't activated your email yet ?.

did you put .co.uk after my email address.

I didn't David. My head was mush yesterday, I probably shouldn't have been near my computer at all. The treatment for my back is Valium and morphine, which doesn't aid clear thinking.

Machaggis52 · **Posted:** Thu Mar 22, 2012 21:06:15 pm

Global Administrator wrote:

McHaggis sorry to hear of your back, but posting your own full home address anywhere on the web is INSANE - IMHO, especially on board that gets a million hits a WEEK. If you are burgled next week of all your stamps, do not blame us. :idea:

And posting another member's email address is strictly against our privacy terms. You seem unaware that cannot be a valid email as it does not have a suffix. Luckily for you.

Please READ this as an example of what can occur when you foolishly plonk your address out there for all to see. Board direct emails are WHY we enable that function.

http://www.stampboards.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=35710

Which is WHY we have this excellent rule HERE - but there are always some who feel rules do not apply to them in life.

Some protest we have "too many" rules, but instances like that prove they are all there for GOOD REASON -

admin wrote:

19. Guard Your Privacy

Keeping personal information personal is a good tip. If you want to share your personal information with another member of the community, do so via e-mail, or not via the boards. If you DO want to post your email on a thread for any reason we INSIST you use this kind of disguised style - georgebush [at] aol.com as it will not then be "harvested" by spam bots trawling websites looking for the curly "(at)" sign, which always means a current valid email address - and then bombarding you with masses of Spam and porn etc. We get LOTS of such bots regularly trying to access this site. The same with posting your personal phone numbers - do NOT do it please - for your own privacy. Contact the other members via the safe and hidden private email system. Moderators will amend any posts that breach either of these rules that they see - with no notice.

http://www.stampboards.com respects members' privacy. None of your personal contact information or email address etc will be posted or visible on the forums unless you post it yourself. By signing up here you specifically AGREED to receive emails from us of any topic replies when you tick that you want those, and you agreed to receive the monthly newsletters and admin advices from us. Some members post up covers or letters addressed to them, showing their full name and address. We strongly recommend you do NOT do that - try and disguise that data. YOU are entirely responsible if burgled a week later. stampboards gets over two MILLION page views a month - you never know WHO is reading your posts - or for what reason. :idea:

Admin

You are completely right. See post above as to why. It wont happen again. Apologies.

dynamode · **Posted:** Thu Mar 22, 2012 22:45:57 pm

So are admin gonna help him out and remove his address from this post ??.

pertinax · **Posted:** Fri Mar 23, 2012 00:09:20 am

asmodeus wrote:

Here a nice strip......

Lovely! And this appears to be a nice 2d strip of the early 'violet-blue' shade?

Am I right asmodeus??

Scott

chipg · **Posted:** Fri Mar 23, 2012 00:18:28 am

hutch wrote:

OK, let's start out by saying that until today I had never heard of an Ivory Head! I'm assuming that it is a one penny red imperforate on bluish paper
...
I'd be very interested in knowing where the post mark is from!? Anybody know?
...
Thanks, Anne

1: There was prussiate of potash (potassium ferricyanide) in the ink. When applied to the moistened paper, some of it turned to prussian blue, dying the paper. In the profile area, there was less ink, so there was less "bluing." The resulting effect is a white profile head (the original color of the paper) against the blued background.

2: On yours, London. Any time you have a number inside of a circle or diamond within an oval of lines (like the diamond on yours), it's a London cancellation. The diamond indicates that it was cancelled at the London Inland Office. The number (7) probably designates a clerk or desk within that office. (A circle with a number would have designated a London District Office or the London Chief Office).

3: You're welcome.

C.

asmodeus · **Posted:** Fri Mar 23, 2012 03:58:47 am

pertinax wrote:

asmodeus wrote:

Here a nice strip......

Lovely! And this appears to be a nice 2d strip of the early 'violet-blue' shade?

Am I right asmodeus??

No, it's a 1 Penny strip Plate 123 slight lavender tinted paper.

Scott

gavin-h · **Posted:** Fri Mar 23, 2012 06:00:14 am

dynamode wrote:

So are admin gonna help him out and remove his address from this post ??.

Moderator Comment: Name and address details removed from THREE posts - the original and two with quoted in.

hutch · **Posted:** Fri Mar 23, 2012 12:28:37 pm

Thanks chipg, that's some very interesting information there! Much appreciated.

Anne

Machaggis52 · **Posted:** Sat Mar 24, 2012 01:52:16 am

gavin-h wrote:

dynamode wrote:

So are admin gonna help him out and remove his address from this post ??.

Moderator Comment: Name and address details removed from THREE posts - the original and two with quoted in.

Thank you. Again, apologies to all concerned. It will not happen again.


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GB 'Ivory heads' on Queen Victoria. Should I buy these?

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