There are many philatelic commonalities amongst the different areas that we all collect. To explain further, if we collect Postal History or stamps of a particular country or period, then our individual reasons for collecting them will in general be similar.

Figure 1

The reasons that will differentiate our collecting habits will be more ephemeral ones such as an affinity with that country or period because we live there or served there during the war, or know a fellow collector who has been a mentor, or we read a book or our family has a connection or there is an historical interest etc.

So when I say I love collecting Queensland, I mean that philatelically it is an interesting state, and one where my wife was born and grew up, as well as one that as a young man I would hitch hike through, enchanted by its natural beauty and one where I find that I can relate the post office names to historical events such as the Palmer gold rush and mining ghost towns such as Maytown, O K, Irvinebank and Eromanga; and going back further we have the Moreton Bay period when Queensland was administered as part of New South Wales.

So I love it because I am Australian and to me that tropical heat and windswept beaches and sighing gum trees symbolises what I love about Australia. Queensland’s history with its reputation as the last frontier, the gold rushes, the pastoralists and the Aboriginals as well as the wonderful native wildlife and the islands and mountains and rainforests and coral reefs, all blended together with its wonderful stamps and postal history creates a blend of magic and intellectual excitement that I find hard to resist.

The Stamps
Queensland’s first stamps were engraved and printed by the famous English firm Perkins, Bacon and were issued in November 1860. The stamps were based on the 1838 painting of Queen Victoria by A C Chalon and hence are known colloquially as Chalon Heads. The first stamps have beautiful rich shades, and were printed in carmine, blue and green the corresponding values being 1d, 2d and 6d (see Figs 1-4).

 

Figure 3Figure 4

Figures 3 and 4.

The first item is a die proof of the 2d. Only two examples of the die proof that are not cut down are known. The mint pair of the 1d is the largest multiple known outside the block of 4 in the Queen’s collection. Also, the 2d pair is one of only three known pairs unused (the largest multiple being a strip of three) and the 6d is only known mint in singles (less than 10 known).

The existence of these classic stamps gives Queensland a high philatelic pedigree. Queensland stamps also include a number of rarities that complement the early Chalons. Some of these are shown in Figs 5-7.

Figure 5Figure 6Figure 7

Figures 5, 6 and 7.

The stamps illustrated include a used vertical strip of three of the Chalons imperforated horizontally in between, being the 1864-65 watermark small star issue. This represents an error in the printing process, and has not been previously recorded used.

Of the issued stamps, one of the rarest is the 1911 9d Commonwealth stamp perf 11mint of which three examples are known.

Another Queensland rarity is the two cornered 6d stamp. About 18 used examples of this stamp are known, most with a 1902 date and cancelled by the Parcels Branch in the GPO. Extensive and often robust debate has raged since the early 1900s when the stamp was first identified, as it was never officially issued, so its appearance is a mystery.

There are two possible explanations. One is that it was prepared for issue (and there are proof examples to support this theory) but was replaced by the 4 corner 6d, and a sheet or two was mistakenly included with other sheets of the 4 corner 6d for use, or someone inadvertently picked up a proof sheet for use by mistake.

Figure 8

Figure 8.

The other scenario is that a block of four of the 2 corner 6d die was inadvertently included in a plate with the result that a number of sheets were printed with 116 4 corner 6ds and 4 2 cornered 6ds. A run of sheets was printed before the error was noticed and the sheets destroyed.

My preference is for the former occurrence ie some proof sheets were inadvertently used by the Parcels Branch at the GPO, as this would logically explain why most examples are recorded in the same time and place, and a few sheets (possibly only 1 or 2 would account for the survival rate). If the stamps were mistakenly printed as a block of 4 on a sheet of 120, then many more sheets would have needed to be printed to account for the survival rate, and there is a chance that some mint copies would have been retrieved, not to mention the possibility of a wider distribution of the stamps.

Figure 9

Figure 9.