Published: 11 September 2026 by Dan Williams
Stamp Articles
I rarely go onto eBay looking for one particular stamp variety. I’m usually browsing for stock: collections, small Queen Victoria lots, mint QEII material, Officials and anything else that seems worth opening. Much of this is done on another phone over coffee in the morning, in the evening or whenever I feel like looking.
As I scan eBay listings, familiar issues trigger a quick check almost automatically. Some varieties stand out in the feed without opening the listing. Others need a tap on the image and a few seconds of zooming. I’m not checking everything that could theoretically exist, only the varieties I know might actually be visible in the listing images.
That recognition came largely from going through collections and old albums equipped with Stanley Gibbons Specialised catalogues. At one time I was consciously looking for individual flaws and varieties. After enough repetition, much of the process became visual. Something catches my eye and I often know what it is before I’ve consciously thought through why.
It isn’t the same across every area. Decimal commemoratives are a good example. The relevant specialised catalogue was out of print for years, and I only obtained a second-hand copy relatively recently. I know some of the printing varieties without thinking, but I’m much closer to the earlier learning stage with those.
A Splayed ‘Y’ in an Army Official
The seller listed this as an unmounted mint SG O45 6d Army Official. I saw the Splayed ‘Y’ in the ARMY overprint in the seller’s store feed and knew what it was immediately.
The basic stamp is SG O45 in the Concise catalogue. In SG Specialised, the Splayed ‘Y’ is listed as L40a. I opened the listing, but not to work out whether the variety was there. That part was already clear. I was mainly checking the perforations and general appearance of the stamp.
I’ve bought from this seller for several years, so I was comfortable relying on the unmounted mint description even though he doesn’t normally show the reverse. If a very light hinge had been missed, it would have affected how I eventually priced the stamp, but not enough to make the purchase a bad one.
Army Officials are one of the areas where certain parts of the overprint tend to catch my eye. There are flaws involving the A, Y, I and L, so singles can sometimes be checked almost as I scroll past them. Groups normally need opening because the feed image is simply too small.
An Open Top to ‘S’ with SPECIMEN
Another Official appeared in the feed as SG O71s 4½d green and carmine SPECIMEN. This time I spotted the Open Top to ‘S’ in GOVT PARCELS.
The attraction wasn’t the SPECIMEN overprint on its own, or the Open Top to ‘S’ on its own. It was the combination of the two. The Open Top variety is SG Specialised L26c, the SPECIMEN is L26s, but the two combined isn’t separately listed or given a catalogue value. Although it’s generally accpepted to combine the two into L26s/c.
This purchase needed more thought. It was substantially more expensive than the Army Official, and I had added it to my watch list while deciding. I would probably have bought it at the asking price, but an offer arrived from the seller while I was still considering it.
The stamp arrived exactly as expected: clean, accurately described and the variety was clear.
That illustrates an important distinction for me. Recognising a variety doesn’t automatically make a stamp worth buying. The condition, asking price, likely resale and what makes that particular example different still have to make sense.
Ten Seconds on a Group of KGVI High Values
The KGVI Arms high values are different again. If I see a group of them, I nearly always open the listing because there are several varieties I can check quickly from a reasonable image.
This group of four was listed simply as sound, Very Fine Used stamps. I opened the image and went straight to the 10/- dark blue. The Scratch on Scroll, SG478ac, was immediately visible. I knew it was the Scratch rather than the nearby Blot on Scroll without needing to compare or confirm it.
From there, I checked the other values for features that could realistically show on a mobile screen. On the 2/6 brown I looked for the more obvious crown, diadem and shield flaws, together with the dot below the lion’s knee. On the 10/- ultramarine I checked the upper-right thistle for the plate crack.
I didn’t bother checking the 5/- for its re-entries. Those are the sort of thing I would want to examine under about 10× magnification, so there was little point pretending the eBay image could tell me something it couldn’t.
The whole check took about ten seconds.
The group cost me under £5, and I wouldn’t have bought it without the Scratch on Scroll, even though the four stamps were good value at that price. The attraction was adding another listed variety to stock. I was also comfortable with some condition risk. Even if the Scratch had arrived with a minor fault, there was still enough room in the purchase for it to remain worthwhile.
It arrived much as expected. The stamp is between Good and Fine Used rather than Very Fine, with a slightly blunt perf at the base and a reverse that needs a gentle clean. I also checked the right scroll on arrival because there is a more specialised version combining the same left-hand scratch with two tiny marks on the right. The cancellation partly covers the area but is light enough to examine. The additional marks aren’t there.
This is probably the clearest example of what the process has become. I’m not trying to check every known flaw. I already know which ones are worth looking for and which ones the image has enough information to show.
The Variety I Couldn’t See
The 1924 British Empire Exhibition 1d is one of those stamps I usually open whenever I see one listed. The Tail to ‘N’ is clear enough on a single stamp that a quick tap and pinch-zoom will often tell me whether it’s there.
A block is slightly different. The seller’s image showed a top-right block of 16 with both the top and right selvedge visible, which made me look more closely straight away. A bottom block wouldn’t have interested me in the same way because I knew the positional varieties I was looking for weren’t there.
The 1924 1d was printed in sheets of 120, arranged as two panes of 60 with ten rows of six stamps. The right selvedge on this block looked narrower than I would expect from the outside edge of the right pane, consistent with the sheet having been guillotined between the two panes.
That suggested a left-pane block, although it wasn’t proof by itself. Someone could conceivably have trimmed an untidy outer edge at some point.
What I could check was the position.
The Tail to ‘N’, SG430b, occurs at R.1/5, the second stamp from the right in the top row. I zoomed in, went straight to that stamp and could see the variety.
That also told me something the seller’s image couldn’t show properly.
Immediately to its left at R.1/4 is the Scratch on Lion’s Nose, SG430a. This is a much more discreet variety. I need magnification to check it myself and would regard it as almost impossible to identify confidently from a normal eBay photograph unless the seller had produced a particularly high-resolution scan.
I didn’t need to see the scratch in this case. Once the Tail to ‘N’ confirmed the position of the block, I knew which neighbouring stamp should carry it.
The block cost around £40. Before it arrived, I’d already decided to split it.
Philatelic sacrilege?
There is an argument for keeping a positional block like this intact, but that wasn’t what I wanted to do with it. Breaking it down meant the varieties could be offered to more collectors, while other buyers could have clean standard singles and blocks without paying for the specialist material.
This made more sense commercially. The ordinary stamps could recover the initial outlay quickly, rather than everything depending on finding one buyer for the complete block.
When it arrived, there was some perforation separation and a small discreet hinge despite the original unmounted mint description. Neither was a problem, and minor differences like that are something I factor into buying from photographs. They influenced exactly where I divided the block rather than the decision to divide it.
The Tail to ‘N’ and Scratch on Lion’s Nose were then sold separately from the ordinary stamps.
Recognition Is Only Part of the Decision
There is always some uncertainty when buying stamps from photographs. I usually think what happens if the condition is a grade lower than it appears, whether the variety would still be saleable and whether the ordinary material in a lot gives me another way to recover some of the outlay.
The amount of thought I give this depends on the purchase. A group costing a few pounds with an obvious listed variety doesn’t need the same consideration as a scarcer Official costing well into three figures.
Bear in mind, sale price minus purchase price isn’t the profit. I factor in eBay fees, postage and packing, and sometimes several other stamps from the same purchase sometimes sitting in stock until they are needed.
For me, the useful part is recognising when the opportunity is there, then deciding whether it still makes sense if everything isn’t quite as good as the photograph suggests.
Learning What to See
Much of this started with working through batches of stamps from collections referencing SG Specialised catalogues. I wasn’t deliberately trying to memorise hundreds of varieties. I was looking for them often enough that many simply became familiar.
With material I know well, that conscious process has largely disappeared. I scan across the stamps and certain differences stand out. Sometimes I know the variety immediately. Sometimes the issue itself tells me which few places are worth checking. Occasionally, as with the 1924 Exhibition block, something I can see tells me what should be present even when the variety itself isn’t visible.
There is luck involved in some of this. The right stamp has to appear in front of me in the first place.
The luck is in it being there. Recognising it and deciding whether to buy it comes from experience.
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