How to Identify Early British Stamps Without a Catalogue

Start with the paper and its watermark

The watermark is the first honest witness on any early British stamp. It is pressed into the paper before printing, so it sits inside the fibres rather than sitting on top of them. Lie the stamp face down in a black sorting tray, or on the palm of your hand, and tilt it slowly under a strong desk lamp. Changes in thickness will show as a faint pale shape: crowns, orbs, letters or numbers.

The 1d black and 2d blue of 1840 were printed on sheets watermarked with a small crown. Many sheets of the 1850s and 1860s carry a large crown, while the surface-printed stamps from about 1880 onwards lean towards the orb or the Imperial crown. Write the watermark on the back of your stockcard straight away. That one note often separates two stamps that look identical in design, colour and cancellation.

Two cautions. Watermark fluid works, but test it on an ordinary stamp first, because it can leave a tideline on brittle or heavily used paper. And be sceptical of a watermark that seems painted on rather than buried in the sheet. Genuine marks shift and fade as you tilt the stamp; faked ones tend to sit flat and rather too neat.

Count the perforations

Until early 1854, British stamps were imperforate. If your stamp has straight, scissor-cut edges it comes from that earlier world; a neat comb of holes all round places it later. That single observation does more sorting than any catalogue page.

Perforations are described by the number of holes counted along two centimetres. You can buy a plastic perforation gauge for a few pounds, or simply lay a ruler against the edge of the stamp and count. A perf 16 line is fine and closely spaced; a perf 14 line sits slightly wider apart.

• Perf 16 appears on the early perforated 1d reds and 2d blues of the mid-1850s.
• Perf 14 runs across much of the later 1d red and 2d blue range.
• Gauges of roughly 11 to 14 turn up on the surface-printed issues from the 1880s onwards.

Spend as much time on the margins as on the gauge. An imperforate stamp should show four clear margins. One that is cut into on any side, or trimmed close to the design, loses a great deal of its appeal even if everything else about it is right. Hold it against white card and check each edge in turn.

Read the postmark, not just the portrait

The portrait tells you the stamp is British. The postmark often tells you whether anyone will pay real attention to it.

• Maltese cross cancellations, used from 1840 into 1844, appear in black on the 1d red and in red on the 1d black. A crisp, well-centred cross is a pleasure to own and adds to a common stamp.
• Numeral cancellations in barred ovals replaced the crosses from 1844. Each town or office had its own number, and an upright, legible number is worth noting in pencil on your card.
• Duplex and circular date stamps from the 1850s onwards carry a date and place, which lets you tie a stamp to a moment in time. Where the year is clear, so much the better.
• Used-abroad marks — letters and numbers applied in foreign ports — can turn an ordinary stamp into something genuinely interesting.

A light, dated, well-placed cancellation is generally preferred to a heavy smudge that hides the portrait. Do not assume, though, that a smudged stamp is worthless; an unusual town or a scarce numeral can lift a very ordinary stamp considerably.

Look closely at the design and the plate

Penny Reds from 1858 onwards carry plate numbers worked into the design, and the letters in all four corners tell you the position on the sheet. Later plates are common, early ones are not, and a few are genuinely rare. The aim here is to notice and record, not to guess. A magnifier of about ten times is plenty.

Check the colour in daylight rather than under a tungsten bulb, because shades matter more than most newcomers expect, and look for overprints, specimen markings and revenue duty marks. Also check for repairs: a stamp that looks too flat, too white or too evenly gummy has probably been cleaned, pressed or regummed, and that matters to a buyer.

Handle everything as though it were valuable

Use tweezers, hold stamps by the edges, and keep them in a stockbook or on card rather than loose in an envelope. Never use sticky tape, never soak anything you are unsure about, and resist the urge to press a creased stamp under a heavy book. Most damage to old paper happens in the first five minutes of enthusiasm.

If a stamp has four good margins, an intact watermark, a clear numeral cancellation or a plate number you cannot place, set it aside in a separate envelope marked for a second look. Your local philatelic society, a specialist dealer or an auction house stamp department will gladly offer an opinion, and for anything genuinely rare a written expert certificate is the sensible next step. Sort first, enjoy the sorting, and let the specialists confirm the rest.