Australia Post
National Philatelic Collection
The Ray Chapman Collection of Australian Commonwealth Stamps
This is a work in progress.
Australia Post are quite happy for us to showcase these pages online as a resource for researchers and collectors of Australian stamps.
Now part of the Australia Post National Philatelic Collection, these pages were sold to Australia Post by Ray Chapman. Over the years, portions of the collection have been on display at various times, but for now and the foreseeable future they are locked away in the AP Archives.
There are 1136 pages available to be shown here, that many collectors don't realise they can see and buried in the coding are larger images. The online images can be found at eHive and also via searching in Trove which will link to eHive.
The pages were photographed about 15 years ago using a digital camera to make a colour record of what the collection contained. Unfortunately both the technology of the camera and the photographer not being a fellow collector, (or simply for expedience at the time), good large images of individual stamps or pages were not made... yet. We hope to be able to get some much better images or scans one day, especially of the rare items such as the Kangaroo and Map essays and proofs.
The pages will display in their numerical order, however there are gaps, as some pages were not photographed at the time (they contained mainly letters and not stamps). Some pages also have a "b"or "c" addition and are black and white additions to the original page. I will note where a page is missing.
When all the images have been posted, at the end of the thread, I will then add the complete Index listing showing the Page numbers and the contents of each page.
It's quite a visual feast to see some of the pages here - and as every good and extensive collection shows, there are pages worth just a few dollars to pages worth over $100,000.
If you can find the 500 page book that details the collection with many additional comments and research by Ray, it's a good read and explains many of images in the collection.
EDIT:
Additional enhancements to the thread.
Once all the pages are loaded in order and the I've added the Index/Contents listing, I will start to post additional complimentary material including better scans of essays and proofs, (from other sources, not from the collection), scans of relevant pages from the book below and other details and commentary that come to light.
SEARCHING:
├ At the top left of the thread is a search box.
The updated software allows you to search for a key word just within this thread alone.
├ Also I will add coded links in the Index/Contents section that when clicked will take you to either the page or the actual post. It saves you having to go through all the pages.
For example:
KGV Letterpress Stamps
Takes you to the page where they are first shown.
And:
KGV Letterpress Penny Red Die Proofs
Takes you to the actual first post that has the Proofs Shown.
Where there are footnotes added to actual pages, there will be a link to the end of the thread that takes you to the supplementary material relating to the page you are viewing.
