S.O.S.

Sink, sank, sunk. These ships never quite made their destination. They wound up making a nice topic for a series of South West Africa stamps however. These wrecks are the Hope, 1804 which was a U.K. brig, the Tilly, 1885, the Eduard Bohlen, 1909 which was a German passenger/cargo ship, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduard_Bohlen, and the Dunedin Star, 1942 from Great Britain, which was a refrigerated cargo liner, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Dunedin_Star.

JimmyB

Nicaraguan Official

 Official stamps from 1890-99 with genuine cancellations are scarce according to my catalogue. So you be the judge on this one, being as I have no clue what an "official" cancellation would appear like. Oh yeah, my book also says forged cancellations are plentiful, so I won't bank on this being genuine, nevertheless this is the highest valued Nicaraguan official I have(that I've come across). This is O99 valued at $25.

JimmyB

Under Down Under

I'm having a dickens of a time figuring this one out. Into the ??? box I imagine. The perfs measure 14.5 on all sides which doesn't seem to help me as none of this example are listed at that. They definetly don't measure 15 which is one possibility and It's hard as hell to tell if this would be considered either orange or what the book calls orange-red. For gosh darn sakes, even orange is kind of red, like a yellow red. As far as whether the perfs are roulette or compound? I need to go to stamp school, my brain is beginning to hurt me.

JimmyB

Crossed Keys

I can't help but think that perhaps a pope may have placed this stamp on an envelope. Chances are though that it was one of the members of the Knights of Templar who did. I'm curious what this cancellation mark looks like in full as it only appears to be a partial imprint. This stamp is from the Roman States, which was governed by the See of Rome. It didn't last long, the Vatican City is all that remains of it. I have several Vatican stamps, but this is the only Roman State stamp which I think may not be a forgery. My other ones appear too clean and crisp to be real. This is #9 in my book, valued at $22.50 if it were(as usual) in much better condition.

JimmyB

I hate watermarks

 Into the ??? box for this one. There are several varieties of this issue and all require you to have a keen eye and a bottle of watermark solution. Since I lack either of those I'll need to wait until I pick up some solution and maybe with the assistance of a powerful magnifier I can deduce what I have here. Whatever variety this turns out to be, it will be a much welcome addition. This is one of the earliest stamps as all the Queen Vics are.

JimmyB

Coincidence

 Ever hear something and suddenly the next day you see it even though you haven't seen it for quite some time? Claudia, who's a member of the group "stamp collecting" said "Portuguese stamps, where are they?" just 2 days ago. Well lo and behold last night I pulled an envelope out with a few stamps in poor condition that if they were in good shape(they are not) would be great finds for me and one of them happened to be this stamp from Portugal.
 This is King Luiz on an issue from 1870-1884. It's catalogue value, #42 in mine, is $14 when in much better condition. Still a find by my standards of low cost acquisitions.
 King Luiz was a man of science, he invested heavily in research boats that set off to the oceans in pursuit of studying new specimens of ocean life. The reign he held was forced upon him by the deaths of his two elder brothers. He had no political skills to speak of, but his scientific interests far outweighed that in my own view.  I just happen to be reading the memoirs of Thomas Henry Huxley vol. 1 at the present time. who was a philosopher during this time from Great Britain who began his career with the British Royal Navy as a researcher on such a vessel. The first part of volume one was a bit boring, but now I'm half thru and it's picking up. So in a sense, it is even more fortuitous that I ran across this stamp.

JimmyB

Queen Victoria

 This is New South Wales #40. I needed to dig out my perforation gauge in the hopes that this was a rarer variety but alas, it was not mean't to be. The color is refered to as "Lilac" though I beg to differ. Perhaps the ink has darkened over the last 150 years (1860-1863 issue dates). The lilacs in my yard are a lighter hue of purple though I have to admit that lilacs do come in a wide variety of hues. It's got quite a bit of thinning on the back side as I imagine it was just peeled from the cover.

JimmyB