NEVIS
1985 BIRDS BICENTENNIAL OF THE BIRTH OF JOHN J. AUDUBON STAMP ISSUES

Information and Reference of What was Found in the Format Archive and Elsewhere

Varieties and Proofs

Would YOU store YOUR specialized 1985 Audubon Birds varieties this way?

Information on this series is changing as more information is being discovered. This page and associated pages will be updated as more information is made available.

Dangerous modern fakes of this issue appearing first in 2014 are on the market. They have the correct perforation size!
Visit the linked page to define all of them and what to avoid.

The Newly Discovered Nevis Audubon Birds Forgeries.
The 1985 Bicentennial of the Birth of John J. Audubon Birds stamps issued for Nevis are beautiful and very colorful sets.
The series was quite a production for the Format Security Printers with the numerous images of birds portrayed on the individual stamps of the series. There are some errors and varieties that exist for this series thus making it quite a diverse and challenging project to complete.

There is no information on the actual quantities produced of varieties and such but we can pretty much assert that the practices of production for other series including the Leaders of the World Automobiles and Locomotives and the Royal Wedding series should coincide with this series as well. Due to the standard principles involved with production of stamps depicting royalty the practices would be the same for this series.

In my recovery of the Saint Lucia and Tuvalu side of the police evidence stock I received nothing for this series.

In the acquisitions of the Bileski estate I got a major portion (almost all) the missing color errors for Nevis. This is because only four press sheets were found in the printers archive. Even some of these were torn, wrinkled and damaged in ways from storage in the archive.
I therefore submit to you that apparently some varieties because of these conditions have now become very limited as to what the collector can obtain and thus have become increasingly of higher value. Try to find certain varieties of these on the market and you will find it nearly impossible to obtain!

The problem is that as mentioned above the forgers are now producing fake errors like inverts and missing values and fake color proofs ta boot! Therefore the market is now being flooded with them and is thus distorting what was actually printed by the Format Printers.

On this page I will try to break down what was produced (by Format), estimated quantities and valuation of the material.

Let's get started!

THE PERFORATED SINGLE STAMP VARIETIES



I will base the quantities produced on the standards used for other series mainly being the Leaders of the World Automobiles and Locomotives Series which obviously were of the same style as this series. Over and over again in the documentation recovered from the trials and directly from the printer the quantities produced for varieties is generally always the same.

For Nevis 1st series, imperforates, specimens and progressive color proofs were retained!

For the normal issue being a popular topic and highly collected the quantities produced for the normal issue was around 75,000 sets. I base this on quantities produced for LOW trains and cars for Nevis.

Pricing should run at the stated catalog values.

I have not seen any uncut press sheets of this issue. All have been broken. Gutters for either series are very rare.

NORMAL PERFORATED "SPECIMEN" OVERPRINTED STAMPS

Documentation and evidence show that:
Based on practices of the printer for other series 2,000 sets of specimen overprinted stamps were produced.
I have purchased specimen sets from both series in the past and they are available but not commonly offered. Note the difference between the 1st series and 2nd series overprints. There is a second "type" of specimen overprint for the 2nd series that was only found on the press sheets found in the printers archive. That type is extremely rare because only four press sheets existed with it. You can read about it on my study of the errors found by Mr. Bileski.

Pricing should run $5-10.00 a set for either series. $40-50.00 for a set from the press sheets.

PERFORATED VARIETIES

There exists only one type of color error. The missing yellow color error was only found on the 2nd series set.
These were only found on the press sheets found in the archive. It was probably planned to produce the standard 3,000 sets but it never materialized. The 1st series had no errors.

Pricing based on the above places a set of color missing at $50-100.00.

Any other perforated varieties or errors are and will be forgeries.

That basically sums up the perforated varieties.

THE IMPERFORATE VARIETY

Standard print orders and practices were for 5,000 imperforate sets. Another 3,000 would be produced for the progressive color proofs.

Because of the forgery problem one should be wary of buying any imperforates of this issue. Up until now imperforates of this issue were rarely offered except with the color proofs. That is only for the 1st series. No color proofs nor imperforates for the 2nd series exist! Therefore all on the market are or will be forgeries. It is probable that the packs for the 2nd series containing the imperforates and color proofs were destroyed, lost or never produced at Format. Something happened with the Nevis 2nd series with the only clue being the press sheets saved in the archive. Why were no press sheets saved for the Montserrat, Saint Vincent, Tuvalu issues? No other color errors found there?

Pricing should run at $5-7.00 for a genuine set from the 1st series only.

PROGRESSIVE COLOR PROOFS

Standard practice was to print 3,000 sets of the progressives.

All values of the 1st series exist as imaged.
An interesting note:
The last few years (2014-2016) sellers on eBay have been selling the 1st issue in color proof form. I purchased some of the lots and verify that they are genuine. These sellers also sell many of the forgeries for this issue and many other issues that were originally printed by Format.
What is interesting is they are selling the full set of color proofs with all values of the 1st series for dirt cheap! The above imaged set in blocks I purchased for only a couple dollars! This evidence and the consistent sales by the sellers shows that all the rest of the color proofs were retained.

Pricing for each value color proof set should be at $5-7.00.

Presentation folders exist for the 1st series. They do not exist for the 2nd series.
Again I must stress that any inverts, misperfs or any other error or variety except for what is described above are forgeries. You must now use caution when purchasing even a normal set because of the greed of a few stamp dealers.

This basically sums up the stamp varieties for the Nevis 1985 Bicentennial of the Birth of John J. Audubon Birds stamp issues. As new information and evidence is found it will be added to this page.

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