Stamp values strong

Press, 28 August 1978, Page 22

Stamp values strong

NZPA Staff Correspondent London The present strength of the international philatelic market is shown in the values listed in the 81st edition of Stanley Gibbons’s British Commonwealth Postage Stamp Catalogue, published in Britain recently. Values for New Zealand stamps reflect the over-all strength, the big increases on last year's prices being for the very' early issues.

The price of an issued 1855 one penny dull carmine featuring Queen Victoria’s head has risen from $9165 last year to 512.830 in this year’s catalogue. The one shilling yellow-green sump of the

same year has also risen the same amount. The unused two penny dull blue stamp in the 1855 series now has a value of $7332 compared with last year’s value of $5040. Prices for later issues and decimal coinage series have generally risen, but none as dramatically as the 1855 series. A spokesman for Stanley Gibbons told NZPA that the substantial upward trend in stamp values had been happening for several years, and this year’s increases were much the same as those of the previous year. “New Zealand stamps

are increasing in value much the same as those of other Commonwealth countries,” the spokesman said.

The world’s most valuable stamp is still the British Guiana 1856 one cent black, which has shot up in value nearly $230,000 in the last year to a listed value of $641,550.

Only one example of the stamp exists. It is owned by an American investment syndicate which bought it for $213,500 in New York in 1973.

The most spectacular increases in British stamps are in the classic issue of the 1900 s.