Rare Stamps of Australia

Like most other hobbies, adding a rare piece to your collection is a great joy. This is also true for stamp collectors who specialise in collecting Australian stamps. Their mission is to find and acquire rare Australian stamps. They do not care about the price of the stamps, they just wish to add it to their compilation so that they can boast about having a full set of all the rare stamps of Australia. There are a number of rare stamps of Australia. Here are some of the rarest.

Inverted Swan Stamp

The inverted Swan Stamp was issued in 1855 and aside from being a rare Australian stamp, it was also one of the first stamps to feature the inverted frame error. The stamp depicts a Black Swan, which was the symbol of the continent at the time. The cause of the error was that one of the printing presses was damaged and the replacement frames were placed upside down. Only 15 inverted swans exist and they are valued at around $60,000.

Queensland Six Pence

The Queensland Six Pence is one of the rarest and the most expensive postage impression in the history of Queensland. There are known to be only 16 Queensland six pence stamps in the world and one of them was auctioned for more than $44,000.

Sir Charles Kingsford Smith

In 1931, Sir Charles Kingsford Smith, an early Australian aviator, became the first living Australian to feature on a postage mark. A set of these stamps were presented to Sir Charles and were passed on to his widow when he passed away in 1935. A set of the stamps fetched $6,500 at an auction in 2009.

King George V head stamps

Not all King George V stamps are very valuable. Only the King George V postage seal issued in 1913 which is dull seahorse green and the royal turquoise cipher stamp which was printed in 1912 with an inverted watermark are known to be some of the rare ones.

Rare Australian stamps can be obtained by various means. Most common and the easiest way to buy rare Australian stamps is from the internet, though this is quite risky. Your safest bet is to go to speciality shops which will not only sell rare Australian stamps, but they will also have some common and collectible stamps as well. You could also try your hand at an auction, though this may burn a hole in your pocket.

Alec Beaufort is into stamp collecting for over 40 years now. Rare Australian stamps collection is a hobby that his grandfather introduced to him when he was only 9 years old.

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