TUVALU NIUTAO
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 series 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 Tuvalu Audubon Birds Forgeries.
The 1985 Bicentennial of the Birth of John J. Audubon Birds stamps issued for Niutao 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.

At present I have not found evidence of the Niutao set being recently forged. All the others have been. The Niutao set was reprinted in the early 1990's without authorization from Tuvalu which could be considered a breach of contract. Here is a link to my page defining them.

The Tuvalu Niutao Audubon Birds Unauthorized Reprints.
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 Niutao Specimen overprinted sets were retained!

For the normal issue being a popular topic and highly collected the quantities produced for the normal issue was around 50,000 sets. I base this on quantities produced for LOW trains and cars for the Tuvalu Islands.

Pricing should run at the stated catalog values.

I have not seen any uncut press sheets of this issue.

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

No errors exist for the Union Island 1985 Audubon Birds issue.

That basically sums up the perforated varieties.

THE IMPERFORATE VARIETY

None appear to exist.

PROGRESSIVE COLOR PROOFS

None appear to exist.

As stated on the reprint pages imperforates, color proofs and errors were produced. It is possible that they may yet appear on the market. Be aware and avoid purchasing anything for this issue without due research.

This basically sums up the stamp varieties for the Tuvalu Niutao 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.

Return to 1985 Audubon Birds Stamp Varieties Home page Here

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