Buyer's Files

Recent Additions

January 9, 2009 by Aron Halberstam Haberstam

We’ve just completed our latest update of the online price list. Here are a few highlights from the stamps on our Featured Items page (which is also our Home page).

Postage Due Stamps of Great Britain — all SG D4 varieties, Mint Lightly Hinged. These are a group of 19 different gummed and perforated color trials for the 2d issue. Just a few of them are pictured. An interesting and attractive item.

Australia 10 Shilling Kangaroo Stamp Scott 101 SG 112 Mint Hinged.

East Africa and Uganda King Edward VII 50 Rupee Stamp — Scott 30A SG 33. This is an exceptional copy, in Mint Lightly Hinged condition. One of several additions from East Africa.

Iraq Stamps in Complete Sets — We have both Scott 1-13 and the Official Set Scott O55-71 in Mint Lightly Hinged condition.

Here’s hoping all our friends and clients are enjoying the start of a very happy and prosperous year in 2009!

Sometimes we find something wonderful…

June 1, 2007 by Aron Halberstam Haberstam

We recently purchased a stamp of the British Commonwealth that was so spectacular we felt privileged to view it, and we are excited to be able to describe it here. The stamp is Jamaica SG85a, a dramatic inverted frame variety of the 1 shilling value, printed in 1920, with a clear 1927 Kingston circular date stamp, and a couple of minor faults. Here it is:

Having the opportunity to obtain such a rare and unusual item is one of the delights of our trade. Buying the stamp at a good price and being able to offer it to an eager customer makes the experience all the more rewarding.

The stamp sold almost immediately to a customer who had requested it on his want list. Generally speaking, we serve our customers via our extensive price list, either online or by mail. However, for our specialized and more advanced customers sending us a want list can be a good idea, even if many of the items are very rare. We are always on the lookout for interesting British stamps with the quality and value that our customers expect. The more information we have about what you are looking for, the more likely it is that we will be able to find it for you.

Posted by Kathryn Wright

Announcing Acquisition of Major King George VI Stamp Collection

March 8, 2007 by Aron Halberstam Haberstam

Greetings all! Our offices are hopping with the recent acquisition of a large and impressive collection of stamps from the reign of King George VI. The collection is a marvel of quality and diversity, with material ranging from the basic to the rare, both LH and NH, including many varieties and an impressive range of Bermuda and Leeward Islands Keyplates. We will be offering items from the collection in our usual manner, as carefully described individual items on our website and printed price lists. Much of the new material has already been added, with plenty more to come.

The purchase of this collection has increased the breadth of our stock of Keyplates enormously, and we are planning to experiment with different options for offering these fascinating issues to our specialized collectors. For example, we will be putting together small lots featuring an array of printings and positional flaws for certain denominations. We will also be offering advice and supplemental information to collectors new to the topic of Keyplate positional flaws. Using the definitive Dickgiesser reference work full of detailed illustration, we will provide documentation for each of the flaws we offer along with the stamp. We hope that this will encourage more collectors fond of the George VI era to expand into this highly rewarding arena. For more information on the Keyplate issues of Bermuda, please see our previous blog posting HERE.

Clients are encouraged to contact us with King George VI want lists, questions about the new material, or queries regarding ways to expand your collection in new and interesting ways.

— Regards to all from Aron and Kathryn at Aron R. Halberstam Philatelists, Ltd.

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

September 19, 2006 by Aron Halberstam Haberstam

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