8c lemon Tas Tiger ... what’s the full story?

[Revenuer]

Very few of the 8c revenue printed in lemon has survived.

As we know the 8c rate serviced interstate cheques, do you know if copies in lemon have survived being used as a make up rate, any on documents out there.

Was this issue an error of colour and withdrawn as an 8c red brown is known.

Is there any official records to tell the full story behind this sort after revenue.

It would be a good record all the lemon issues if holders of this revenue could post a picture of them here so we can record all known copies in this thread.

Ross had some lemon mint copies go through his auction a while ago, whats the story on these Ross? do you still have the pictures.

I will start with my only copy.

Dave

[Ross Ewington]

The story about the 8c lemon was told to me by Bill Craig a number of years ago. As I did not record the facts at the time one should regard this account as anectdotal as I may not have remembered the tale exactly as it was told.

Apparently, a complete sheet of the 8c lemon was sent from the State Treasury to (of all places) the Public Trustee Office in Hobart where Bill was the CEO. It is believed this sheet was a (rejected) colour trial and that only a small number of the stamps were used by the office (to pay the interstate cheque duty) before the error was noted by the Treasury and the remaining stamps recalled. It was the reading of the recall letter that alerted Bill to the existence of the stamp.

As presented cheques were retained by the Public Trustee office as an audit requirement, Bill kept a keen eye out for any returned cheques that bore the 8c lemon stamp duty and managed to find 14 used examples ...... no addition to this total has ever been made and of course (if the facts are right), is unlikely to occur.

In regard to the small number of mint copies that surfaced in recent years they are definitely not "ex Craig" (Bill was away from the office during the time the the stamps were issued and recalled). I believe they were sold to a collector by a woman who may have been employed at the Public Trustee office at the time and kept a few as a "souvenir" (i.e. may have actually been responsible for returning the stamps to the Treasury and thought "these are interesting ... I'll keep a few).

I hope this account is of interest. I will search my auction image files in the near future and see if I can post a few images of the 8c lemons sold in TSA auctions.

[arybalov]

Dear Dave,

I have just joined this forum after being advised of existence by Ross Ewington. I wish to advise that I was the purchaser of the mint 8c sold on Ross's auction a while ago.

There was a block of 4 and a pair. I managed to get them both (thought there would be more competition). I still have the block of 4 but have since sold the pair at another auction house. I also have 2 or 3 used copies that I got earlier that I may consider offloading and just keeping the mint block. I haven't got scans of it yet but if you are really keen can organise.

Cheers
Alex Rybalov

[Ross Ewington]

Thanks Alex - I probably still have the images from the auction that I will post here when I locate them.

There is another MUH block of four (below) that has just (today!) been consigned to me for auction.
I have no idea how many other examples the vendor has but it is probably very few as it is known that
stamps were returned to the Treasury and only a small quantity for the original sheet could have been
"souvenir-ed" by a person or persons unknown. (it definitely wasn't a stamp collector)

[Ross Ewington]

Below are images of the block of 4 and horizontal pair of MUH 8c lemon Tas Tiger
stamp duties to which Alex refers (above).

Sorry about the quality of the colour ... the scanner I used three years ago wasn't
a patch on the one I have now. - Ross

[Revenuer]

Nothing fits, my guess is there is more top come as you would not keep blks from different parts of a single sheet unless it was torn into blks at the start with a few being kept.

[tazy]

Here's my copy of the 8c Lemon.

I acquired it from a Cinderella Club of Australasia Postal Auction in the late 1980's/early 1990's - cant remember exactly when.

[Revenuer]

Andrew one would have thought if so few were used and at the very same time, ALL the cancels would be the same, I think there may be a few sheets out there. It would be good to get some more postings of used copies….Dave

[admin]

Heres another used example from the Bill Lloyd-Smith's Tasmanian Revenues article that has just been posted on the TPS web site. If you haven't see the article, its an excellent coverage of the subject and has some nice colour images including this one. See http://www.tps.org.au/html/revenues.html

fig-20-tassietiger.jpg (8.6 KiB) Viewed 12831 times

[John Shepherd]

Here is another used example



Pen cancelled "5/1/[19]70" - Prestige Philately #108 Lot 569

[Ross Ewington]

This mint no gum example was on offer at eBay during October 2009.
[attachment=1]8c lemon eBay OCT2009.jpg[/attachment]
...and the reverse.
[attachment=0]8c lemon eBay OCT2009 reverse.jpg[/attachment]

[Ross Ewington]

This used copy from 9/7/70 was sold by Tasmanian Stamp Auctions in their
July 6th 2006 postal auction for $290 + charges.

8c lemon used.jpg (22.05 KiB) Viewed 12080 times

[tazy]

Hi Ross,

The MNG 8c lemon just in your recent auction (#55) would appear to be a different example to the one you posted from ebay in 2009.



cheers,

Andrew