TUVALU - VAITUPU
1985 85TH BIRTHDAY OF QUEEN ELIZABETH THE QUEEN MOTHER STAMP ISSUES

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

Varieties and Proofs

Would YOU store YOUR specialized 1985 85th Birthday of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother 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.

The 1985 85th Birthday of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother stamps issued for Vaitupu are a beautiful set and very colorful.
The series was quite a production for the Format Security Printers with the numerous images portrayed on the individual stamps and souvenir sheets of the series. Numerous errors and varieties 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 also received a portion of the progressive color proofs for the souvenir sheets from all the countries involved in numerous series. With Saint Lucia a major portion. With the Tuvalu and Islands what remained was very small. I fear now that most has been lost or destroyed very probably by terrible storage conditions.
In the recovery some were found in packets which moisture had penetrated and basically destroyed them all. Some were still wet! As if stored in a cellar! Even moldy!

In the acquisitions of the Bileski estate I got several lots of panes of the missing color varieties, perforation varieties, watermark varieties and gum varieties. These being 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 impossible to obtain!

On this page I will try to break down what was produced, estimated quantities and valuation of the material.
I will use 2 sections to do this. First being the single stamp issues and secondly the souvenir sheets.
With the souvenir sheets section I will be tallying up both for the one issued in 1985 and the restricted printing set issued in early 1986.

Let's get started!

SECTION 1

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.
Interestingly enough as I stated in the introduction page for this series the progressive color proof Presentation Folders were not allowed to be reprinted due to the reprint agreement excluding this from happening. Therefore in my opinion the progressives were only printed once.

For Vaitupu it appears that only what is listed in the Urch Harris Catalog still exists! Proofs of the issue do exist on presentation cards listed by Rushstamps. No progressive color proofs seem to exist in any form for this country.

This is an image of the advertisement made in the Urch Harris Commonwealth Stamp Catalog made back in 1987-88 for the 1985 Tuvalu Vaitupu 85th Birthday Stamps and Souvenir Sheets and varieties.

This ad gives you an idea of what was available and pricing at the time.

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 Vaitupu.

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.
These are quite commonly sold on the market thus most of the sets must have been retained.

Pricing should run between $7-10.00 a set.

PERFORATED VARIETIES

There are no other varieties of the single stamp issues to report at this time.

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.
According to the Urch Harris ad none exist. Nothing available on the market.
Rushstamps does list all values as available on presentation cards at a steep price.

PROGRESSIVE COLOR PROOFS

PRESENTATION FOLDERS

The presentation folders are limited to 250. The reprint agreement enforced this rule and it was followed.
All values exist as imaged. Standard practice was to print 3,000 sets of the progressives.

It appears at this time that the progressives were destroyed except for the presentation folders.

Pricing should run between $25-35.00 for each presentation folder.

SECTION 2

THE SOUVENIR SHEETS

Following is the rundown of what is known to exist in regards to the souvenir sheets.

THE PERFORATED ORIGINAL SOUVENIR SHEET

Documentation and evidence shows that:
At present at least 5,000 copies of this issue were produced. Probably more.
This is based on the following evidence found in the St. Lucia holding.

1.) 3,000 copies have been found in the police evidence.

2.)These are for sale by numerous internet sellers and stamp dealers.

3.)One dealer of Format Material (mentioning no names) is selling bulk lots of 5 seeming to have many copies. This is a popular series collected by many collectors and thematic collectors thus demand is higher.

Because of these factors pricing for this souvenir sheet should run at average Scott listed pricing of $3-5.00.

VARIETIES OF THIS SOUVENIR SHEET

Documentation and evidence shows that:
At present based on practices of the printer at the time 2,000 imperforate souvenir sheets were made.
Another 1,500 were produced with the progressive color proofs.
Nothing is available on the market for this souvenir sheet. There is listed an offering by Rushstamps for the proof in presentation folder at a stiff price.

THE RESTRICTED PRINTING SOUVENIR SHEETS

The perforated $2.00 Restricted Printing Souvenir Sheet
The perforated $2.50 Restricted Printing Souvenir Sheet
The restricted printing souvenir sheets were asserted to be around 2000 being printed by Robson Lowe. They are readily available at numerous locations on the internet. This shows that all were retained. I believe now that it was closer to the standard 5,000.

Accordingly pricing should be at $3-5.00 each unless evidence of a lower number being produced is found.

A NOTE The image below shows availability of the imperforate and specimen overprinted varieties for the restricted printing souvenir sheets.

THE RESTRICTED PRINTING IMPERFORATE SOUVENIR SHEETS



The limited numbers printed of the normal issue would make one believe that the imperforate varieties would fall under lower numbers.
I do not think this to be the case. Evidence is showing that standard practices were used for the varieties. Therefore I would estimate that at least 3,000 to 4,000 were produced. Sorry to say but this makes the imperforates valued at regular issued values. They are readily available on the market.

Accordingly pricing should be at $3-5.00 each unless evidence of an even lower number being produced is found.

THE RESTRICTED PRINTING SOUVENIR SHEETS WITH SPECIMEN OVERPRINT

Documentation and evidence show that:
At present based on practices of the printer at the time 1,000 perforated and 1,000 imperforate of each were made.
There does not appear to be an imperforate variety.
The Specimen overprinted sets are available (though not to often) in various locations and listed by Rushstamps.

Accordingly pricing should be at $10-15.00 a set.

THE PROGRESSIVE COLOR PROOFS OF THE SOUVENIR SHEET
Again I can find no sets of these available anywhere on the internet.
Some were sold in the final sale of the archive though so they do exist.

THE MISSING SILVER OR GOLD BORDER AND INSCRIPTIONS ERRORS


At this time I cannot find either value for the Vaitupu issue available. This "error" is found on both the values of the restricted printing souvenir sheets for Several Countries and I have found the Tuvalu $2.00 issue in this form.
Standard practices of the printer were to produce 3,000 sets of missing color errors. I believe this to also hold true for this type of error. It is sold quite commonly on the market showing many have been retained.
The reason I know? Because I have retained around 2,000 copies of the Saint Lucia variety via the police evidence. This is a made for collector error. It is an interesting novelty.

Pricing should run at $5.00 each should they be found to exist.

At this time there is no evidence that any other varieties were made for this particular souvenir sheet.

This basically sums up the stamp varieties for the Tuvalu Vaitupu 1985 85th Birthday of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Omnibus series. As new information and evidence is found it will be added to this page.

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