New Tasmanian Official Perfins online catalogue

[wilbaer]

Hello All,

My name is Jerry Austen and in the last 8-9 months, I have been working in association with David Coath on a new project to create an online catalogue of the Official Perfins of the Australian States. The Tasmanian section is now ready for release, but I would dearly love the input of the TPS to point out any flaws, misinterpretations or glaring errors that I have made during my research, if anyone is willing to review it and provide feedback. I have been assigned a huge stockpile of official perfins to sort through as one of the bases for my research and along with information from many existing works, I have created the current document, which will be put online when finalised. The two Tasmanian pages are here (I am borrowing my son's "Save the Tasmanian Devil" website as a temporary storage place for the pages, so that people can view them - my apologies ) :

http://savethedevils.com.au/wp-content/ ... ith-SG.pdf (T perfins)

http://savethedevils.com.au/wp-content/ ... -title.pdf (OS perfins)

I have been collecting the Australian States for many years but I am fully aware that my knowledge of very specialised areas will not come close to the experts in the field, hence the reason for putting this out there to you Tasmanian specialists. I have used the Stanley Gibbons catalogue as the best guidelines for the documents, in the full knowledge that other publications exist that go into more detail. However, myself and David believed that this was the most sensible common ground to at least add a further reference point for collectors and people who will be using the site to discover what official perfins they actually have.

The one area that has been tricky for me in Tasmania is the Pictorials and their multiple shades. I have tried wherever possible to list the positions in the 'OS' and the different patterns in the 'T' per shade, but not being a specialist in this area and having only been able to refer to the quantity of stamps on hand to check personally, I deemed it best to be slightly more generic with the ‘T’ perfins in the listings per shade and pattern, since the shades listed in SG seemed to be pretty much of similar value and I found no reason to suspect that certain shaded would NOT have been perfinned at the time. Without more knowledge, this may prove to be flawed logic, so if anyone could further enlighten me on this issue, that would be fantastic.

All in all, any critique and help that you could all give me would be hugely appreciated, since the goal is to have as complete and accurate a site as possible once it is finally released, so please post any suggestions, comments etc or email me directly and I can adjust and change things as necessary. There are also a few scans of stamps that you will see missing, purely since I did not come across them in my stockpile. Any additional scans would also be a big help if anyone would be so kind.

Thank you for your efforts and I look forward to hearing from you in due course and to getting the final site up and running for all the States in the near future.

Kind regards,
Jerry Austen

[Jerry Weirich]

This reference will definitely be useful. I have studied the lithographed pictorials for many years so can add a few comments.

SG 237, halfpenny litho exists in type 1 configuration perf 11.
SG 237, halfpenny litho exists in type 2 configuration, have seen type 2 only in perf 12.5.
Many of the OS values exist with missing pin in the 4 o'clock position of the "O" This is worth listing in any reference of these stamps.
A few values are known with double OS. These are probably printer's waste and could be mentioned in the listing.
You may want to consider adding first usage dates to the listing. For example, the first day of usage of the "T" perfin is 1 November 1902. This date is known on 1d Typos and 2d lithos.

[wilbaer]

Hi Jerry,
Many thanks for the info about the halfpenny SG 237 - very much appreciated ! Good to know that the OS type 2 sideways has only been seen on the perf 12.5. I have changed and re-loaded the file on the webpage. I also added in the reversed OS on the 8d tablet that Ross discovered and mentioned in his posts in 2010, which I had missed from my notes. Also just noted a typo for SG239 and 239d, which should be position 1 from the values I have seen. If anyone knows of POS 2 (OS sideways) for the p12.5 2d Litho, please let me know.

Another board member here, Dave Elsmore, who is very kindly helping me out on this project and is a constant source of information, also mentioned the 'missing pin' values to me last night. I shall make a point of mentioning this variant when it comes to writing the overall introduction to the Tasmanian section (each section for every state will be intro'ed by David Coath for the overall site).

As to the first usage dates, this sounds like a good idea to put into the intro too - the only list that I have about the earliest dates is from Tinsley, but would love to get an updated version of this, as I am sure a few new dates may have been found since its publication. Indeed, I have found 3 examples in delving through our pile of perfins where I have an earlier date for a particular pattern than is listed there (but which has probably been superceded by now). In the interim (as the intro has not been finalised yet) , I have just put a table at the top of the pdf for the T perfins and if people would like to inform me of the latest dates for each pattern that they know of, we will have an up-to-date listing in no time.

Finally, the 'double OS' question and other variants. This has reared its head in other states and we purpously didn't mention these in any state, since they generally do not happen particularly often and no-one really seems to know why they did with any degree of cetainty. The one thing we were mindful of when creating this project was not to provide a means that could open the doors for forgers to come in and start attempting to mess up the whole area for everyone - hence the reason for not giving rarity ratings or values in the listings. It is being created purely as a reference tool for the official perfins.

Thank you very much for the help, Jerry, and the changes have been made to the PDF. Looking forward to hearing any more detailed information down the track. Here are the dates that I have in the interim. I will also edit this post as well as the master page to keep things up to date until a final version is sorted out...

Pattern Earliest Date recorded
4x6 Sep 1904
5x4 7 April 1903
5x5 15 Dec 1902
5x6 4 Mar 1903
6x4 7 Feb 1903
6x5 29 Dec 1902
6x6 4 Feb 1903
6x7 1 Nov 1902
6x8 26 Oct 1903
7x4 ?
7x5 8 Nov 1902
7x6 1 Nov 1902
7x7 11 Nov 1902
7x8 22 March 1904
8x6 27 Aug 1903
8x7 1 Nov 1905
8x8 11 Oct 1908

Cheers
Jerry

[Jerry Weirich]

Jerry -- I can confirm that the 2d litho, POS 2 (OS sideways) does exist perf 12.5. I have one in my collection.

Let me know if you need any scans of the lithos for the online catalogue. Jerry

[wilbaer]

thank you, Jerry - is it the Reddish Violet or Deep Rose Violet shade, do you know... could you possibly post it on here? I have only listed the 2 shades in SG, as that has been the standard that we have used, so it would be good to get that as exact as possible. Cheers... JA Jerry (how are we going to differentiate our names - people may get confused reading posts between Jerry's - I'll be JA....)

[Jerry Weirich]

JA -- I may be confused on what you're looking for. I've attached the scan of the 2d litho with OS sideways that is perf 12.5, but not sure about the color shade. So....this may not be what you want. Sorry if it's not. Jerry

2d_OS_Sideways_Plate_15.jpg (91.61 KiB) Viewed 23529 times

[Hobbit123]

There are a number of T perfins around with curved vertical strokes and other variants. I have a small selection that I got from Randall Askeland, but I am not sure where I stored them.... I will add to my list of things to post when I find them.

[Jeffharris]

I have some information regarding the pictorials punctured "OS".

Recess Printed - only the top four denominations were punctured. All four can be found with the puncture sideways or upright. You can add the 3d. with sideways puncture to your list.

Lithos. V/Cr.paper - I notice you have not provided a scan of the 1d. Red. I have not seen this one punctured and it is not listed in Brusden White or Keith Lancasters handbook. This stamp was issued in Jan. 1902 and most stocks were exhausted by the end of that year. The first Tasmanian stamps to be punctured "OS" appeared in late 1904, some two years later. It seems unlikely that any 1d. Lithos were available to be punctured, but sometimes old stock does turn up [e.g. the 1d recess printed stamp punctured "T" are often found with 1910 cancels]. Hopefully, someone may be able to provide an example.

Lithos. Cr./A paper - B.W. lists the 3d. perf.12.4 as being punctured - I have not seen it and probably does not exist. The 4d. lithos are interesting. You have provided scans for two of the straw brown shade [plates 1 and 2] and one of the orange buff shade[plates 3 and 4]. I have both of these, yet B.W. states that only the orange buff has been punctured. I am not sure about the orange yellow being punctured as I have not seen one and the orange buff shade is common. B.W. also lists the 6d. in both perfs as being punctured but I have not seen either.

Electros on V/Cr. paper - the 1d. exists with the puncture upright as well as sideways. The upright one seems to be scarce whilst the other is common. All appear to be from plates 3 and 4. Perhaps someone else can advise if they exist on plates 1 and 2.

Electros on Cr./A paper - the 6d. electrotype is found perf. 11 in both shades. It also exists with perf. 12.4 but is scarce. Last year a few bogus examples of the perf. 12.4 were offered on Ebay. They are quite convincing but careful examination will show they are not genuine. They are dangerous to the novice collector. Other members of this B.B. can provide extra information on these. Obviously, this is not the place to discuss the defects in the punctures.

[wilbaer]

Sorry for the delay in replying, folks - was away for a couple of days. Thanks for the pic, Jerry - good to get a sighting of this one. Will amend it accordingly.
Thanks to Hobbit - there seems to be all sorts of oddities with the T perfins, will probably not go down the track of listing these variants, as the listings could evolve exponentially, but if you do get hold of them, it would be naturally interesting to see and then we can take it from there.
Thanks also to you, Jeff - will make some necessary updates based on your info. I shall do some cross-checking with the stock book full of Tassie perfins to see what more I can ascertain.

The 1d Red Litho OS V over Crown SG238 has been noted as being seen, but I have not come across one either. If anyone has a scan of one of these, it would be great to have it listed here for posterity and I shall update the table accordingly (and use the scan in the website, if that is OK).

AS to the Lithos Crown over A, I did think that the last one that I scanned was the Orange Yellow shade, as it did seem different to the others. I shall re-investigate to see if I have any other examples if this is just a lighter shade of the this shade. I am by no means an expert on these small shade differences, so I may just post a few here to see what you think. I have also never seen the 6d lithos in this series punctured OS, but again, if anyone has them, please scan them in and post here and I shall update accordingly.

AS to the Electros 1d on V over Crown, I shall change the listing to represent position 2. As you only have 4 of them, which particular shades do you think they may be? I do not have the knowledge to know if any of the shades listed in SG would make it impossible to have an OS puncture from a date perspective, so if you could let us know, or possibly scan them in to post here, that would be great, Jeff.

AS to the 6d electro Crown over A, my scan has both the 6d perf 11, I believe, but would you recommend that I list the perf 12.5 in both shades, or is the OS unique to one of them, do you think?

Thank you all again for your inputs - it is exactly this type of info that I had hoped would come from the Tasmanian specialist fraternity and it will help enormously to get the site as up-to-date as possible. Much appreciated, I can assure you.

Cheers
Jerry

[Jeffharris]

Hello Jerry,

Re the 4d. Litho in Orange Yellow. If you check all your 4d. lithos punctured "T" you will find that all four shades were punctured. The orange yellow shades should be obvious. The orange yellows [from plate 6] have all been plated. If the two lighter coloured stamps on your scan do not have any flaws, then they are unlikely to be orange yellow. However, some of the flaws listed [in Lancaster's handbook] are very tiny and are easily missed.

Re the 6d. stamp. An excellent article in the December 2011 edition of the Courier has been written by two of our most respected philatelists, regarding the 6d. litho and electro printings. The information has come from the official records held by the Reserve Bank in Sydney. The 6d. litho [printed in April 1908] did not have any stamps puntured "OS". The first of the two printings on electrotype plates took place on the 18th. October 1910. The records show that 30,000 stamps were punctured "OS", but does not indicate if both perforations had punctured stamps. The second printing was in early April 1911. The stamps from this printing are in a lighter and duller shade. None of them were punctured "OS".

Re the 1d. Red on electrotype plates with V/Cr. Wmk. I have searched through my spacefiller box and have now found a total of eight stamps punctured "OS". Four are "OS" upright. All are from plates 3 and 4 [used between July 1903 and September 1904. They are all Rose Scarlet. The other four [with the sideways punctures] consist of two in Scarlet and two in Rose Scarlet. The question is - "Were any of the Scarlet printing punctured "OS" upright"? I should mention that all eight stamps are perf. 12.4.

[wilbaer]

Hi Jeff,
Sorry - have been working all weekend - will reply to this properly on Wednesday. Thanks for the help.
Cheers
Jerry

[wilbaer]

Hello Jeff,

Finally had some time to look through your post in detail.

re the 4D Lithos - yes, the T perfins do seem to be in all 4 shades - I have numerous samples and I put the 4 best scans on the "T" document to show the differences that I thought were visible in the shades. However, to the non specialist like myself, It is a tricky area. I do not have the flaws list to hand to compare with (I looked at a Lancaster whilst at Philas House in Sydney, I think, but at the time it was a bit too specialised for my enquiries at the time). If you or someone could possibly email me a scan of the 4d flaws to look out for, I shall do my best to check. Irrespective of that, the document will reflect that all 4 shades were punctured 'T'.

re the 6d. Electro - My apologies if I have mis-interpreted something, but I am a bit confused. In one of your earlier posts here, you mentioned that the OS existed in both shades, but the article in the Courier states that the Oct 2010 printings had 30,000 struck, but the 2nd printing had none. Should I will amend the listing to reflect that the later printing SG254cb Dull Carmine Red did not exist with OS puncture, as per the findings in the Courier? I will add in, though, that the perf 12.4 is up for debate and left it as a question mark, so if anyone has such a copy (SG254) with OS puncture, please let me know and if you could post a scan, that would be great.

re. the 1d Electro V over Crown, my only copy of OS upright is on a perf 11 Rose scarlet. Could you possibly let me know if your OS uprights are perf 11 and/or perf 12.4. Also, SG lists Pale Red and Rose red for these electros (SG240 and 240d) - are these verified with OS puncture, since you mentioned only Scarlet and Rose Scarlet in your post. My scan in the document show two lighter shades which I had thought could be Pale Red and possibly Rose red, but could not be sure as again, I am not a shades specialist with these. What would your thoughts be?

Again, if anyone can verify any of the open questions that are raised during these posts, I would be hugely grateful if you could let us all know, so that I can update the documents accordingly. Thanks for everyone's help.

Cheers
Jerry

[Jeffharris]

Hello Jerry,

I have just had a look at the excellent scan of the 4d. Lithos punctured "T". The shades are [from left] - Straw Brown, Orange Buff, Orange Yellow and Brown Ochre. Any 4d. litho with a date prior to 14th. March 1912 cannot be an Orange Yellow. Unfortunately, the Orange Yellows do fade over time and when this happens they look similar to the Straw Browns.

The information I gave you about both shades of 6d. electros being punctured is wrong. The information in The Courier is correct, as it was taken from the official records. I have rechecked my small holding [this time in natural light] and although there is a variation in the shade, they are all from the Carmine Lake [first] printing. Stamps from the Dull Carmine Red printing vary in shade from a dull lake colour, to almost the same deep shade of the first printing. Used stamps seem to be harder to identify.
I wonder if this is because this printing was done using a double fugitive ink? Perhaps someone who knows about the technical side of the printing of stamps could answer this.

I have not seen any 1d. electros with V/Cr. wmk from plates 1and 2 that are punctured "OS". Hopefully someone can provide you with a scan, as they should exist. The Pale Red stamps are easy to identify, as they vary from a washed out looking pinkish red to a pale orange red. Most of them have a sideways wmk. Rose Reds are also from plates 1 and 2. These are very similar to the Rose Scarlets from plates 3 and 4. One way, of course, is to check the dates of the cancels. If the cancel is prior to 14th. Sept. 1903 then the stamp must be a Rose Red. Also, if the stamp has a coarse impression [in particular the top frame or the side panels] then it is probably from plate 1, which was subject to two major repairs and subsequently began to wear rapidly.

[wilbaer]

Hello Jeff,

Thanks for the comments - glad I managed to pick the right shades out for the scan. The differences are quite distinct with the 4d in comparison to some of the other denominations' shades. The Brown Ochre is an interesting one to me, since the only copies I have of that particular shade all have only the 8x8 pattern T. Would there be a reason for that, do you think?

As to the 6d OS, I shall amend the listing according to the article in the Courier, given their research.

Still waiting on confirmation that a 1d Litho SG238 with an OS puncture does actually exist. has ANYONE got a scan of one of these?

On another note, does anyone have any changes to the dates that I have listed early in the "T' document regarding the earliest usage of the particular patterns of T? All inputs and changes gratefully received !

Many thanks
Jerry

[Jeffharris]

I have only three 4d. Brown Ochres punctured "T". One is 6x6, one is 7x6 and the other 8x8. The first two have larger diameter punctures than the third and have much straighter alignment.
There is still no scan available for the 1d. Litho with an "OS" puncture. There were just under 5 million of them printed and if just 1% were punctured, there should be many examples seen. Its existence is extremely unlikely.

[wilbaer]

Put like that, Jeff, it does seem that it is pretty unlikely that none have surfaced or been recorded from a pool of 5 million. As no-one else has reported one, I shall leave it unlisted in the website until proven otherwise. I shall also note your T patterns for the 4d Ochre....thanks for the input.

As to the table of earliest dates for these patterns, I shall publish what I have listed - no doubt there will be additions and changes down the track and it will be interesting to see what dates come to light one the website is released for general consumption. If anyone has inputs in the meantime and can help with possibly getting it more up to date, that would be hugely appreciated.

[Jeffharris]

Hello Jerry,

I have had an in depth look at the "T" puncture listings.

The Recess Printed Stamps - According to Keith Lancaster the halfpenny and 2d. recess printed stamps were not punctured "T". You have not included the halfpenny but show the 2d. as 'not seen'. When the punctured stamps first appeared the stocks of the 2d. recess printed stamps were exhausted. Unless you can obtain a copy [or scan] it might be wise to delete that listing. Stocks of the 1d. stamp were also supposed to be exhausted in early 1902, but they are known to exist punctured "T" as shown in your listing. The only ones I have seen are all used in 1910, however, several of them have machine cancels and the first known use of a machine cancel was in Hobart in July 1908.

You have listed the 1d. Litho [on V/Cr.] as punctured "T", but this is unlikely [similar to the "OS" puncture on this stamp].

You have not listed SG259 or SG259b. This is the 2d. Electro in Bright Violet that was printed in late Dec. 1910 or Jan. 1911. This stamp was punctured "T". Both perfs were done and there are numerous variations in the pattern. This stamp is very similar in colour to the 2d. Bright Reddish Violet that first appeared in about June 1910 [there were at least three printings in this shade during 1910. Each was slightly different in colour thus making it even harder to identify them. This was the
last use of plates 1 and 2. The stamps from plates 3 and 4 are slightly larger in size. If you look at your scan of the electrotype stamps you will find the 2d. in the middle is larger than the 6d. below it and is therefore an SG259.

Just to make things more difficult, this stamp has been described by Lancaster, S.G. and B.W. as being printed on Stereotype plates. This is incorrect! An interesting article in 'The Courier' No. 28 [published in Dec.1999] shows on page 10 that the plates sent to the printer and then returned, were definitely Electrotypes. Hopefully, the catalogues will one day be amended, but these things happen very slowly.

[wilbaer]

Hello Jeff,

Thanks for having a close look through the "T" document and listing your points to address there.

re. the Recess stamps: I knew about the 1/2d, but I had left in the 2d since I had not sighted one myself and it was included as a ? by David Andersen in his listings, so I thought it prudent to leave the door open on that at the time. However, if the paper stocks of the 2d had been exhausted as reported, then I shall delete the reference - easily added in if a discovery is ever made. As to the 1d, I too have only machine cancels and one dated June 1910. Curious how these came about...

the 1d Litho on V/Cr: I shall do the same as above, given that no-one has reported a sighting so far (and shall do the same for the 'OS' listing too).

2d Electro Bright Violet - many thanks for pointing that out. I had searched for the 'larger' 2d's whilst wading through the pile that I was checking for watermarks, perf variations etc and obviously missed that one. It did seem odd at the time that I couldn't find any, particularly given that any later printings in other denominations all seemed to have T punctures. Now that I have an example of the shade (despite there being slight differences in the 3 printings as you suggest), I now have a good example to go off and this will make it easier to re-check my stock, so thank you. I shall of course add the listings in the 'T' document for SG259 and 259b. BW mentions that they do not exist punctured 'OS'. Is this correct?

Thanks again for your diligence, Jeff - very much appreciated and all helps to make the listings as good as they can be when the whole site is released.

Cheers
Jerry

[Jeffharris]

Hello Jerry,

The 2d. Bright Violet punctured "OS" is not listed by Lancaster. As you mentioned it is not listed in the BW catalogue. I doubt if they were punctured, as the demand for "OS" stamps was a lot less than that for the "T" punctures. It would be interesting to find out which Federal Government departments in Tasmania used "OS" punctured stamps. Two obvious ones would be Customs & Excise and Posts & Telegraphs [P.M.G. Dept.].

Earlier this evening I was reading an article in an old issue of "Stamp Talk" [P.S.of S.A magazine].There is an article on SA punctured stamps and it stated that:- 'From 1905 and thereafter O S punctured stamps were used by both State and Commonwealth departments'. I wonder if that happened in Tasmania.