SAINT VINCENT
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 Saint Vincent Audubon Birds Forgeries.
The 1985 Bicentennial of the Birth of John J. Audubon Birds stamps issued for Saint Vincent are a beautiful set and very colorful.
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 Saint Vincent 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 Saint Vincent.

Pricing should run at the stated catalog values.

I have not seen any uncut press sheets of this issue. Gutters do exist from them though.

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 this specimen set in the past and they are available but not commonly offered.

Pricing should run $5-10.00 a set.

PERFORATED VARIETIES


There exists one missing color "error". I have only seen the one value shown missing the magenta (red) color.
No information on it's origins. Basing on the existence and because all four values of the set are produced on one large press sheet the other values with missing red should also exist. Again it is possible they are lost, destroyed or "held" somewhere. Standard orders were for 3,000 sets. Unless proven otherwise pricing is based on the standard.

Pricing based on the above places a full set of missing color errors at $5-10.00. Therefore the above single pair should be priced at $1-3.00.

The inverts and any other "error" that shows up are recently produced 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. It is probable that the packs containing the imperforates were destroyed, lost or never produced at Format. Genuine imperfs and color proofs appear to have come from press sheets. The seller of the above imaged got them from the Bileski Estate. There appears to be no presentation folders for this set either.

Pricing should run at $5-7.00 for a genuine set. If proven that the panes do not exist then genuine imperforates will be extremely rare and worth more!

PROGRESSIVE COLOR PROOFS

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

Again the color proofs are not commonly offered. Again showing that they may only come from press sheets.

Pricing for each value set should be at $10-15.00. The above imaged therefore $40-50.00.

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

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