1851 Laureate Issue New South Wales State Stamp of Australia

Following on from its first stamp, New South Wales continued with their series representing Queen Victoria in their stamps. The imperforate issue is highly collected deemed as the second stamp of Australia being that New South Wales was the first colony. These stamps were printed from 1851 until 1854. Different denominations and colours of the stamp were issued during this time.

1d Red, 1d Red on Blue Paper, 1d Orange, 2d Blue on Blue Paper, 2d Blue, 3d Green on Blue Paper, 3d Green, 6d Brown, 6d Brown on Blue paper and 8d Orange on Blue Paper. At the beggining of stamp production white paper was not always available and many of the state stamps, across all states, were printed onto blue paper. In some examples, the production on blue paper can make the stamps more valuable.

What Does Laureate Issue Mean

This is a term given to the series by early philatelists which stuck, denoting the laurel head piece around Queen Victoria. Later this would be changed to a jewelled crown, but the feathered laurel was significant to this stamp.

Variations and Collectability

Information on this is a bit tricky to come by and the point of these articles to have it one place where people who are interested can begin their journey into Australian State Stamps. I have done my best to do a brief overview of these issues and later in the blog will have much longer posts discussing the variations and values of these stamps.

For now, there is great variability in colour and shade and the plates they were printed on. There are also collectible errors in the stamps as the plates began to wear from usage, this was reflected in the quality of the stamps produced and aids in plating the stamps to reproduce an entire plate set which to a collector could make the stamp far more valuable than the catalogue price.

Valuation

At the time of writing catalogue prices vary from mint stamps starting at $450.00 right up to $18,000.00 for the highly sought after 6d Orange printed on blue paper. Used or cancelled stamps start at $25.00 up to $750.00. As with all catalogue prices they are a guide only and the market demand can see these prices go much higher for these stamps as they are highly prized in any collection of Australian State stamps.

2d Blue

There are many shades of this stamp but the general catalogue defines them as ultramarine, greyish/blue, and blue. They were printed on yellow and blue paper and the paper itself has been given shade definitions as yellow, yellowsh brown, blue, bluish grey. This is just an overview of the many collectible and distinguishable features of this stamp. The Stanley Gibbons Catalogue (the bible of all philately) has a much more detailed list of the variations of colour but it is a subjective art trying to define exactly which colour you have in your hand and the colour in the catalogue. Although you would think the internet would help with this, it can make it more difficult with the representation of colour by cameras and screens making it even more difficult. Below is an example of the ultramarine shade and above the darker blue.

1d Red

The main categories of colour for the red 1d Laureate are orange/red, carmine red, and red. Again dinstinguishing these shades is what hours of fun is made of at any stamp meeting and for someone like me who is a bit colour challenged, it is very difficult to distinguise. Below are two examples of the 1d Red that are a bit more clearly colour defined.

There is far more to say about this series which I will leave to a much longer individual post but above are the basics for this series.