British Commonwealth Stamps

Aron R. Halberstam Philatelists, Ltd.

Aron R. Halberstam Philatelists, Ltd.

Buying and selling quality, pre-1960 British Commonwealth stamps.

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P.O. Box 150168
Van Brunt Station
Brooklyn, NY  11215-0168 USA

Order online or call 1-718-788-3978

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Telephone: (718) 788-3978
Facsimile: (718) 965-3099
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Blog

Tips on viewing our stamps online

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Developing a website with an enormous database like ours was not easy.  Just as it is very challenging to figure out how to organize the stock in the office, determining the best way to give customers access to our stock online required creating a variety of sorting/searching/listing options while preserving the structure of the database we were already using for ourselves. 

We are aware that the online ‘Price List’ page does not serve every customer’s needs.   Indeed, if you are looking at our website on a regular basis it is not especially useful to go back to the ‘Price List’ page each time, as the options there are not finely tuned to the specific needs of regular customers. 

Instead, the most convenient way to look for new items is to go to the ‘Search’ page  and choose to view only items listed within a given time period (the choices are 5 days, 2 weeks, 6 weeks, and 6 months).  Since we usually update our list once every 7-10 days choosing the 5 day option might not provide you with all of our newest items, but for some very active buyers it has proved convenient.  Any of the other options will narrow down the list significantly and still show the ‘freshest’ stock we have.

For specialized collectors, be aware that you can choose as many criteria on the ‘Search’ page as you like.  So for example you can select ‘NH items only’ and only items added within the last 6 weeks and only items from the British Pacific (in the Region field) or whichever region or country you may prefer to view.  There is also a ‘Keyword’ option with choices like Airmail Stamps, Officials, and so on.  Getting to know how the ‘Search’ page works best for you will significantly reduce the number of irrelevant items in the resulting list.

I am always eager to help our clients better understand how our website works and to  hear any problems or questions that arise.  Coming up I’ll add a new post regarding the ordering page which may also prove useful.

Happy Searching!

posted by: Kathryn Wright

Examining the Shades of Falkland Islands Stamps, Queen Victoria to King George VI

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I have wanted to write on the topic of the many shade varieties of the Falkland Islands for several weeks.  During the summer Aron acquired a very nice collection of Falkland Island stamps and I had the opportunity to comb through it and identify a great many items in the Queen Victoria, Edward VII, George V, and George VI issues.  It seemed like a perfect opportunity to write an extensive blog posting on the topic, but we were amazed and amused to discover that the newly added items sold so well I simply couldn’t imagine writing a description of particular items we had on offer without immediately needing to revise as they sold.  Clearly, Falkland Islands stamps are in demand, and it’s plain to me why that is.  Collecting shade varieties in older stamps is a challenging but rewarding task, and the Falklands issues have a very rich array of choices.  So I have decided to provide some more general comments on the topic below in the hopes of piquing interest and providing some tools and hints for current and future collectors of Falkland Island stamp shade varieties. 

Being a professional philatelist I have a fortunate advantage when identifiying shades, in that I can often look at a great many examples of a given value from Aron’s stock.  I also make frequent use of my Stanley Gibbons Stamp Colour Key (an absolute must-have for anyone interested in identifying shade varieties).  Although the key is not necessarily an exact reference for each stamp it serves as a very useful comparison tool, in comparing not only the stamp to the pictured shade on the key, but also in comparing one shade on the key to another in order to narrow down the possibilities for a given stamp. 

Nonetheless, shade comparisons can be exceedingly daunting at times.  It’s not too hard to learn the difference between blue and ultramarine, but how to distinguish light blue from pale blue, indigo from deep blue, and so on?  It has taken me years of study to become comfortable with these subtle distinctions in shade, and even then there are often differences in individual issues that require that I wait for more examples to arrive in our offices before I can make a confident identification.  Needless to say, we only offer shade varieties for sale once we have reached such a confident conclusion.

If one is interested in acquiring familiarity with subtle shade distinctions in stamps of the British Commonwealth, putting together a collection of the stamps of the Falkland Islands is a perfect way to get there.  One would want to use both the Stanley Gibbons catalogue and Stefan Heijtz’ highly respected Specialized Stamp Catalogue of the Falkland Islands and Dependencies for reference. In the Victoria, Edward VII and George V issues you can learn to identify true Greens and Yellow Greens, true Orange and Yellow Orange (usually much paler), a full range of Ultramarine and Blue shades, and so on.  (On a side note, the highly elusive Reddish Purple variety of the Edward 2d and the Reddish Maroon shade of the George V 5 Shilling are so tricky they require the application of ultraviolet light to the stamp to see the difference, and so should only be purchased as described from the most reputable of sources.)

For the Falkland Island stamps of King George VI’s reign, even more expertise is often required to determine the many different printings of almost every value.  I have made ample use of the invaluable article available on the KGVI Stamps website, which you can view here: www.kgvistamps.com/articles/falkland/Falkland.html.  It is an exhaustive survey of the many different printings and offers all kinds of useful tips for narrowing down identifications based on secondary features, like gum texture and color.  While Stanley Gibbons lists a few of the shade varieties in the KGVI Falkland issues, most notably the difficult 5/s shades and the reasonably priced 1/s shades, there are many unlisted shades which can be found in the Heijtz catalogue and which make for an enjoyable hunt for the intrepid collector.

Our own stock of Falkland Island stamps is broad and ever-changing, as we buy and sell in this category regularly.  Please check our price lists frequently and of course feel free to submit a want list as well. 

Posted by: Kathryn Wright, Philatelist