Three Halfpenny

The Three Halfpenny Georgians

An exceedingly complex issue covering basically quite different stamps. The difficulty arises from classifying them by date, colour, perforation, or watermark, since most of these standard variations were, to some degree, all used contemporaneously. The most basic division is between electroplate versus steel plate printing, mercifully separated by the introduction of small watermark paper.

This is a 'last great frontier' of predecimal research. Compared to the obsessiveness, and lemming-like quality, of collecting 'shades' of 1d red which all came from the same plate and inkpot, a shade on a 1½d could indicate a different PLATE! A slight variation in color tone does not make  a different stamp (and in many cases are only color changelings). A plate, is a different stamp. Research is further hampered by Australian collectors obsession with  neat corner cancels. No useful date or region information can be gleaned from this idiosyncracy which, mercifully, the rest of the world avoids. 'Neat' corner cancels in Europe are priced at 10% of the full 'used' value. If you collect used stamps, then collect USED stamps, not ones generally CTO'd to look good.