MONTSERRAT
1986 60TH BIRTHDAY OF QUEEN ELIZABETH II STAMP ISSUES

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

Varieties and Proofs

Would YOU store YOUR specialized 1986 60th Birthday of Queen Elizabeth II 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.

NEW UPDATE!!

New forgeries of this issue have come on the market and are being sold online and elsewhere. Fake inverted frame "errors" and fake imperforate souvenir sheets have appeared so far. Please visit my new page that describes these forgeries so you don't get ripped off! Here is a link to it.

The 1986 60th Birthday of Queen Elizabeth II stamps issued for Montserrat are a beautiful set and very colorful.
An interesting note on the Montserrat issue is that all the stamps were on watermarked paper in the original printing. This therefore created more varieties. Also there are more missing color varieties for the singles set than for many of the other countries in this series.

The series was quite a production for the Format Security Printers requiring a higher number of color stages to produce the final stamps. Due to this higher number of stages the opportunity for more varieties was inevitable and did occur. Usually stamp production ranged from 7 to 9 color stages. With this series there 11 stages due to the framing of the design.

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 this 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 3 sections to do this. First being the single stamp issues, secondly the souvenir sheet and third being the unissued stamps.

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 1986 Royal Wedding Omnibus Series which obviously came out right after 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.

This is an image of the advertisement made in the Urch Harris Commonwealth Stamp Catalog made back in 1987-88 for the 1986 Montserrat 60th Birthday Stamps and Souvenir Sheet and varieties.

More varieties have been found since this ad but it 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 75,000 sets. I base this on quantities produced for LOW trains and cars for Nevis.
Noting that some values can still be purchased in full panes of 25 in bulk.

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

WATERMARK VARIETIES

The 10c, $1.50 and $3 values exist with watermark varieties.
It is time Scott Catalog and Stanley Gibbons got their act together and list what is proper!
Scott Catalog lists this set as UNWATERMARKED. No notations about watermarked versions at all!
Stanley Gibbons. What a mess! Simply stated, There is no known copies of this issue with watermark 16 sideways, inverted or whatever!
Watermark 15 (Scott 380) which it appears Stanley Gibbons is so kind as not to show us in the information and Guidelines section at the beginning of their specialized catalogs is normally sideways on the single stamp issues as imaged below looking at the front of the stamp.
Oddity is they state that this version is on the 10c value only. Nothing under the $1.50 value and then state it is "inverted" on the $3 value.
I submit that all three values have the watermark as above imaged. All three values with the missing grayish background also have it this way. Now the twist! Another variety is the watermark being reversed as imaged below.

These "errors" were purposely made and the standard orders and practices at the time called for 3,000 watermark varieties being produced. 120 panes.
The 10c and $1.50 value exist with the watermark this way. At this time I see no evidence of this happening on the $3 nor $6 high value.
And now for another twist. The $3 value exists with the watermark reversed and inverted!
I believe this is what Stanley Gibbons is "partially" correct on.

Pricing for stamps with normal sideways watermark should run at $3-5.00 each and $10-15.00 for a set of three.
Pricing for stamps with reversed watermark and reversed and inverted should run basically the same.

MISSING COLOR ERRORS

The 10c, $1.50 and $3 values exist with the grayish background color missing.
All of the missing color errors have normal watermarks.
NONE are listed or noted in either catalog!

The 10c Value with Missing Grayish Color Background Error

The $1.50 Value with Missing Grayish Color Background Error

The $3 Value with Missing Grayish Color Background Error

This "error" was purposely made and the standard orders and practices at the time called for 3,000 missing color varieties being produced. 120 panes.
A very simple process. One stage of the printing process was excluded. Simply by not applying the gray color as the Color guide comparison below shows.

Pricing for stamps with missing grayish background color should run at $3-5.00 each and $10-15.00 for a set of three.

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.
Please be very careful when purchasing singles as some perforated stamps have been tampered with cutting off the perforations to make them look like imperforates.

Pricing should run at $7-10 a set. Pairs are preferable or stamps with selvage as they are more provable to be authentic imperforates.

PROGRESSIVE COLOR PROOFS

At present it appears only the $6 value was saved similar with what happened with Nevis. Standard practice was to print 3,000 sets of the progressives.
The $6 value is available in several locations on the market. Over priced in some cases.
There does not appear to be any presentation folders for this set from Montserrat.

Pricing should run at $15-25 a set due to the obvious fact that most were saved.

SECTION 2

THE SOUVENIR SHEET

Following is the rundown of what was saved in regards to the souvenir sheet.

THE PERFORATED 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 $5-7.00.

THE IMPERFORATE 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. I have acquired only around 350 via the police evidence. These are available on the market at various locations.

In accordance pricing should be around $10-15.00 each.

THE PERFORATED AND IMPERFORATE SOUVENIR SHEET WITH SPECIMEN OVERPRINT

Documentation and evidence show that:
At present based on practices of the printer at the time 1,000 of each were made.
I have acquired around 25 imperforate SPECIMEN overprinted souvenir sheets via the police evidence.
The imperforate variety is available on the market at various locations.
At present you can get the perforated version for around $15.00 apparently only at Rushstamps. They do not offer the imperforate version.

In accordance pricing should be around $10-15.00 for either version.

THE PROGRESSIVE COLOR PROOFS OF THE SOUVENIR SHEET

Documentation and evidence show that:
At present based on practices of the printer at the time 1,500 progressive color proof sets of the souvenir sheets were made.
I have acquired only around 450 sets of the above imaged via the police evidence. It is probable the rest are lost forever. I could only find about 350 of the finals. I can find no sets of these available anywhere on the internet.

Pricing should be around $75-100.00 for each set unless more are recovered which is now doubtful.

A note on the above progressives:
You may have noticed there are two all colors proofs on many sets. This is because the full progressive color proof set has 9 stages. The eighth stage is the black addition. This particular set contains the 8th stage of which I found one partial pack. Many progressive color proof sets from many different issues have been and are being sold without this stage present thus they are not complete sets.
I have also noticed that the final color progressives for other country souvenir sheets are sometimes being sold as an error as it does not have the inscriptions. This is not correct. It would only be an error if it was perforated.

At this time I can find no evidence of errors made for this particular souvenir sheet.
The Urch Harris lists it with blue-gray background omitted. As you can see by the above imaged set of progressives for the souvenir sheet this would require separating the frame and ribbons and the blue-gray background stage of the proofs like the single stamps.
There is no evidence that this has been done! Therefore should you have any information or evidence of the missing blue-gray background variety for the souvenir sheet, please feel free to contact me.

This basically sums up the stamp varieties for the Montserrat 1986 60th Birthday of Queen Elizabeth II souvenir sheet. As new information and evidence is found it will be added to this page.

SECTION 3

THE UNISSUED SOUVENIR SHEETS

THE PERFORATED SOUVENIR SHEETS

This is a rather interesting variety because again there is no fully documented information on them. Back in 1990's Kasimir Bileski purchased the unissued sections of the archive being sold by Christie's/Robson Lowe. At that time the above images mini souvenir sheets were found in the archive. Robson Lowe wrote in the inventory list that 250 of each value were found. Here is an image of that section.

I have a theory developed by the printing practices at the time. At that time the restricted printing of the 1985 Queen Mother's 85th Birthday souvenir sheets was also in process. The restricted printing was estimated by Robson Lowe to be between 500-2,000 souvenir sheets printed. I personally would go with 5,000 printed because of the availability on the market today. Several dealers selling them in bulk lots of 5 and such.
Therefore my theory is that the same holds true for the unissued 60th Birthday souvenir sheets as well! These same dealers are selling them in the same way and they are available in numerous locations all over the internet.

Pricing should therefore be around $10-15.00 for a set of the Montserrat version.

Now I come to the fascinating part on these.
Try to find these as imperforates, as specimen overprint, with errors, as progressive color proofs. You won't find them.
But guess what!?! There does exist a couple varieties!

For Montserrat two values have been found in imperforate form!!

In the Robson Lowe inventory list was a section describing both the 60th Birthday and 85th birthday unissued souvenir sheets on composite uncut press sheets! Here imaged is the page on them.

At the time this was written Robson Lowe did make errors on what he deemed were unissued values. There were a couple for other countries though! Those will be defined on their own specialized pages.
In my recovery of the Bileski estate items, I was able to recover a major portion of the souvenir sheets that made up these two composite press sheets!
You see, Mr. Bileski cut them all into his favorite format. Souvenir sheet PAIRS. Therefore the uncut press sheets (at least to my knowledge) no longer exist.
Now I present to you the only images in the world of the rebuilt composite press sheets which in all probability will never be reassembled again!

First Composite Press Sheet Described by Robson Lowe

Second Composite Press Sheet Described by Robson Lowe

Interesting yes?
Therefore there are a few varieties that are in the status of extremely rare to unique. Unique because Mr. Bileski cut the souvenir sheet pairs in several different ways when he cut up the sheets. Unique in the sense that the composite press sheets themselves differed in that some certain souvenir sheets were imperforate whereas in others they were not. At this point I am calculating 5 or 6 of the first imaged sheets had the imperforates. The second imaged sheet had no imperforates.

Combinations are different and I do not have them all. Perhaps you have one. Please email me information and images if you do!
Below are images of the combinations I have for the Montserrat 60th Birthday.

The 10c Montserrat 60th Birthday paired with the $1.50 British Virgin Islands 60th Birthday

The IMPERFORATE 10c Montserrat 60th Birthday paired with the IMPERFORATE 12c British Virgin Islands 60th Birthday!
A MAXIMUM of 5 to 6 of either value can possibly exist!

The $1.50 Montserrat 60th Birthday paired with the 75c Saint Lucia 85th Birthday

The IMPERFORATE $1.50 Montserrat 60th Birthday paired with the 75c Saint Lucia 85th Birthday!
A MAXIMUM of 10 to 12 of the $1.50 value can possibly exist!

The $1.50 Montserrat 60th Birthday paired with the 35c British Virgin Islands 60th Birthday

The $3 Montserrat 60th Birthday paired with the IMPERFORATE 35c British Virgin Islands 60th Birthday

The $6 Montserrat 60th Birthday paired with the $2 British Virgin Islands 60th Birthday

The $6 Montserrat 60th Birthday paired with another $6 Montserrat 60th Birthday

All of these combinations are extremely rare. From 1 to 3 are all that exist for most! Below I image a diagram showing why this is so.
I got a major portion of the second sheet which Robson Lowe stated there were 5 of. You can see from the diagram how the combinations varied. Therefore any of them (even the singles) are of extreme rarity.

Mr. Bileski's pricing would be around several hundred dollars each.
Pricing should be around $50-75.00 for a pair and $50.00 for a single. The imperforates are worth $2-400.00 for singles and $3-500.00 for pairs depending on the combination.

This basically sums up the stamp varieties for the Montserrat 1986 60th Birthday of Queen Elizabeth II Omnibus series. As new information and evidence is found it will be added to this page.

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