Rare Stamps - Part I

Hello, something different for a few days. Please write if you enjoy or if you don't. I thought I'd talk about rare stamps. I have none in this league and it is always nice to have a dream to own one. Tonight a Cape of Good Hope stamp. The Cape of Good Hope is in South Africa as I guess you know although the development both politically and philatelic of South Africa and its many areas is complex so I will pass on that here. Amazing history to the area but lets leave that to your own readings elsewhere.

In 1861 some stamps were issued as local provisional stamps. These were referred to as the Wood-block issue. These stamps were engraved in London and were printed from stereotyped plates that were mounted on a wooden block and thus the name Wood-block. or Woodblock as is more frequently printed. The stamps were created by a Cape of Good Hope surveyor and were supposedly designed in a triangular shape so locals would know they were local stamps, with the design of a female figure sitting on top of an anchor, which is resting on top of a rock, symbolizing the Cape.

The Woodblock Stamps were printed in 1861 in both 1 penny and 4 penny values. The 1 penny Woodblock Stamp comes in the color vermillion while the 4 penny Woodblock Stamp comes in the color pale milky blue with various shades. However, the 1 penny stamp was accidentally printed with the color pale bright blue (shown below) and the 4 penny stamp with the color vermillion.










Just over 24,000 of the One Penny and 20,000 of the Four pence Woodblocks were printed. At most there are believed to be 220 errors in each case. The rarer shade of the one penny in pale bright blue is valued at £30,000 in sound used condition in my copy of the 2009 SG Commonwealth & British Empire catalogue. The vermillion 4 penny error is listed at £40,000

It's nice to dream don't you think?

Enjoy your stamps .. Michael