advice on identifying great britain george v defins please

ZohVle

hello

i recently bought a lot of great britain 1850's - 1950's. everything was a jumbled non catalogued mess and i am now in process of sorting it all.

i bought a 2005 scott G-I catalogue and a local dealer loaned me a stanley gibbons 1995 british commonwealth catalogue.

im working backward & first sorted eliz II then georgeVI pretty easlily.

now im onto george V. the commemoratives were pretty straightforward, though i want to study items such as jubilees for errors, seahorses for varyations, etc. btw - if any one is interested in selling (or prefersably trade) a vg used 1929 £1 PUC, im interested.

maybe i can one day i can get all stamps scanned and then show what i have for trade.

now im onto george V defins all issues and want to scott numer / gibbons identify them and have 1 example of each in my album. i have a few hundred at least, they cover all issue dates, varying shades, who knows what watermarks (i bought harco fluid and a tray but im scared to use in case i wreck a stamp, is there some kind of light i can buy? are they expensive?) all sorts of diff postmarks, including triangle shaped ones with large letters (eg NPB), i cannot find any ref for these kind of postmarks anywhere.

anyway, i am finding it very confusing trying to cross reference between the scott and gibbons books. not just because scott does not acknowledge all the shades but also beacsue gibbons handles the release dates so differently and there are so many subtle details to read up on in cross referencing that i just get confused (im new to this [jan 05] since collecting as a boy).

can anyone give me some pointers on how to approach this in an organized fashion. my goal is to have one stamp for each release date in my collection & selll / trade the rest.

next i will be doing edward VII then Victoria and i think they are going to be even harder.

thanks for your time, dont know if there is an acceptable length to posts, i know this 1 is long, sorry.

wayne (thats not a gap between me teeth, just a bad pic, i promise!)

dougwtx

Hi,

If you are going to seriously collect British stamps, you may want to stick with Stanley Gibbons. Its difficult to get a cross reference between SG# and Sc# as Scott is real strict with their catalog numbers so publishers can't use their numbers freely. That's why you don't see any albums with Sc# in it unless its a Scott album or the Schaubek US. If I happen to run across any British philatelic literature, I'll pass it on. I loved the penny blacks, reds, and blues. There's so much to learn about all the letter combinations and cancels. Too much for this old dog to learn.

I've heard of a watermark detector that does not need fluid; something like insta-tector or rolla-tector by Morley-Bright. Never used them so can't comment on them, but they sound interesting. Maybe someone else here can help on your questions.

Have fun.
Doug

ZohVle

doug

thanks for excellent and humourous feedback, something for me to start with.

i agree about the impossibility of gibbons / scott cross referencing. i should have made myself morre clear. i meant i am using gibbons to educate myself on all the variations for a "single" issue. but, being im in US, im using scott #'s (in my personal album, for personal use / reference only) as a general reference per year of issue, etc.

it is fun, its like detective work. often i have to remind myself to stop, open my album and actually look at the stamps.

i appreciate your very kind offer to pass along any literature you might come across,

i have readc a number of your replies to other members enquiries abnd i am impressed at your very thourough, well thought out input and advice.

this is such a great site, i am so glad i found it.

so, you say all the info for the early victorians is more than you want take on, with that in mind, what is your area of focus / interest?

take care
wayne