1855 Tasmania Van Diemen’s Land State Stamp Chalon Head Imperforate Issue

A far more refined portrain of Queen Victoria emerged in the 1855 series of stamps which still depicted Van Diemen’s Land as the state of origin. Tasmania’s name changed in 1852 but the process had already begun with the production of the state stamps and it wasn’t until 1858 in this series that Tasmania was represented on a stamp. There are many variations throughout this issue and this article will serve as an introduction and overview of the stamps.

Denominations

The Chalon Head was issued in 1d Carmine (Red), 2d Green and 4d Blue.

In 1856 the 1d brown was added to the series along with the above though they were given different shades as the issue with obtaining colour dyes continued in the colonies.

In 1857 the 1d became brick-red and brownish red, 2d remained green although the catalogues added yellowish green and dark green to the classification, and 4d became blue and dark blue.

Watermarks

The 1855 stamps had watermarks while those printed in 1856 did not and those in 1857 were issued with a new watermark. This helps identify which issue of this stamp you may have in your possession and accordingly its value.

At the time of writing the mint examples vary from $400 up to $2.250 while a used (cancelled) example ranges from 440 to $300 so identification is key for this issue.

A collector will concentrate on shades and watermarks and I have seen a page of the different shades the green 2d came in and its astounding when you see a collection together with all of the variances. This led to many forgeries of the stamps and sometimes it is not until you’ve seen a few of these that you can more easily pick the fakes.

A much longer post looking at the subsequent issues in this series will appear later in this blog.