Namibia First definitive 18cent value

[gabriel 1 10]

I have noticed in the new South African Catalogue that there was an 18c stamp printed but never released due to the change in postal tarrifs. Does anyone have more info on this stamp?. How many were printed?, are they freely available?, where would one find these stamps?, are there pfoofs, gutters, controls etc?.

[dstorm 10]

18 Namibia Proof.

 

Hello Gabriel

 

This stamp is definitely a proof. It was sold as uncut proof sheets by the Nambian Post Office to a syndicate of two or three Namibian philatelists.

 

The uncut sheet consisted of eight panes, which in turn consisted of 25 stamps each. There were three uncut sheets sold of this stamp (in all probability the only three that exist) which gives a total of 600 stamps that exist. As far as I know, a complete sheet was sold to one collector, leaving only 400 on the open market. Not many, considering that this stamp is missing from most Namibian collections and also because it is a brilliant thematic. I am sure that by now most would have been snapped up by the traditional Southern African and German markets as well as the American thematic market.

 

In theory (ignoring the fact that no-one would break up control blocks) there are 30 horizontal and 14 vertical gutter pairs per sheet. I will have to check up on the positioning of the control blocks, but as the uncut sheet consisted of 8 panes, there are obviously 8 control blocks per uncut sheet (a total of 24 in existence).

 

This stamp is now extremely rare and very seldom offered on the open market. I am sure that the current catalogue value does not do it justice!

 

Regards

 

Jacques