Stamps Worth Hundreds

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30958, 14 January 1966, Page 3

Stamps Worth Hundreds

(N.Z. Press Association) AUCKLAND, Jan. 12. Somewhere, possibly still in Auckland, are some faulty New Zealand stamps that could provide a nest egg for their owners.

A defect in a block of six stamps in the issue marking the eleventh Commonwealth Parliament Association conference held in Wellington last y3ar has been discovered by an Auckland woman. According to an Auckland stamp dealer, Mr John Bishop,

who has bought four of the stamps in a block, they could be worth some hundreds of pounds. Mr Bishop said the original buyer of the stamps was starting to use one of them when she noticed the value, fourpence, was missing

But she went ahead and used the stamp and probably had used another previously. With a yellow background, the stamps portray a head of the Queen and the New Zealand coat of arms. The value is written in blue in a prominent position near the centre. Three of the stamps now in

Mr Bishop’s possession have come from the outside vertical strip of 12 stamps from a sheet of 120. Each of the three has the blue colour missing from the left-hand flag of the coat of arms, the value mark has gone completely and so have the tiny blue ferns below the coat of arms.

The blue background in the coat of arms is also missing. Blue has begun to appear in the fourth stamp which has come from the second vertical row of the main block. There is a little bit of blue fern present and the left-hand flag contains colour. The value is not present. Mr Bishop feels the remainder of the 24 stamps in the two strips would have contained defects, but he felt the chances of their being found was not good as the issue was withdrawn from general sale last Friday. The value of the stamps, if postmarked, would be only slightly less than that of the unused one, he said.