SAINT VINCENT LEADERS OF THE WORLD AUTOMOBILES AND TRAINS STAMP ISSUES AND VARIETIES

The Cars and Trains Stamp Issues for Saint Vincent Produced by the Format International Security Printers

A Specialized Study of the Varieties and Quantities Produced

Would YOU store YOUR specialized stamps this way?

In 1983 Saint Vincent joined other commonwealth countries in the production and issuance of the Leaders of the World (LOW) Automobile and Locomotive series of stamps. Between 1983 and 1986 Saint Vincent issued 5 sets of the Automobile series and 6 sets of the Locomotives series. This page will try to clarify how many sets were issued and produced and what varieties were also produced. I will show examples of the varieties including progressive color proofs, specimen overprinted varieties, imperforates and yes, the "made for collector" errors and where possible, genuine errors.

There was a huge controversy on the legitimacy of the production and sale of the varieties which ended up in court trials against the owners of the Format International Security Printers Ltd. and associated companies, their owners and some employees. The trials proved that the companies and owners had the sole right to reprint, and produce the varieties at their discretion for promotional programs and such despite the objections of the Tuvalu Philatelic Agency and others. A large portion of the progressives and other varieties were seized as evidence for the trials by the British Metropolitan Police and held by the same until 2008 when they were finally released back to the original owners. See the above image as an example of the cruel way the material was stored. We are lucky it survived! Representatives for Tuvalu went through the material and confiscated some for destruction but much was left and now these varieties are available to the collecting community to add to their topical and specialized collections. As for the material from St. Vincent, St. Lucia and so on, it was released back without as much tampering.

The valuation of the material has been grossly under valued because of the stigma produced by a few agencies, clubs and ex-employees and some dealers over the past 20+ years influencing the collecting community with the idea that there are "millions" out there hidden away in warehouses, attics and elsewhere. This is NOT the case and with the evidence I now have, I can now show this to be a huge exaggeration on the facts.

I will present each set as it was issued and show examples of some of the varieties. Either I have exact documents proving what was produced or I will use existing documentation which shows the general practices used for ordering and printing of the varieties which shows the general consensus of quantities produced and if possible...what still exists. As (and if) more information and documents are discovered, it will be added to this study for reference to collectors.

Through evaluation of the documents I have in my possession and the common practices of the printer, all sets of LOW Cars and Trains fall under the same consensus of quantities produced. We know that all issues for Saint Vincent were reprinted once. The standard was the same for all that 21,000 normal sets were reprinted for the Philatelic Distribution Corporation, (PDC). General invoices and documents show that original orders for many stamp sets outside the Leaders of the World Series and including the LOW series as well ranged from 15,000 to 25,000 sets for Saint Vincent. At that time the PDC had a set allotment printed for resale via outside stamp selling entities. The allotment was generally 2/3 of the given original orders. The calculation of 21,000 for Saint Vincent appears over and over and is an easy quantity to break down for the allotment. 21,000 went to the Saint Vincent Philatelic Bureau and 14,000 went to the PDC's outlets. So I will base on the higher figure that a total of 75,000 sets were produced for Saint Vincent. I show basis for this below.

There IS a difference with Eastern Hemisphere countries as there was also an allotment of the regular issued stamps that was added to the issues sent to the PDC. These were called "GOOD OVERS" which was a supplemental stock or extra number of sheet runs (possibly to compensate for any errors) in the main run of reprints. Here are examples of these invoices.

These three invoices are for the St. Vincent 1985 Automobiles 4th series

The SPECIMEN Overprints
The "GOOD OVERS"
These two invoices are for the St. Vincent 1984 Locomotives 3rd series

Again the "GOOD OVERS"
At the time of original printing some Progressive color Proofs and varieties were produced. These were usually in what I call 5-stage or 6-stage sets. The 5-stage sets include the yellow and black colors combined stage. The 6-stage sets have no all colors with no inscriptions stage. The 7-stage sets are the reprints for all the series up until late 1986 when the 7-stage sets became the norm. All presentation folders have the reprints. The reasons for the reprinting were that the earlier printings were from press sheets of which very few were saved. The reprinting was done to produce limited quantities of varieties for collectors to buy at affordable prices to enhance their collections. The majority of reprints come from cut panes. Storage of press sheets, which are very large, proved to be from the earlier versions not viable and so almost all the reprints were cut into panes for ease of storage.

The standard printing was set for all reprints.

3,000 sets of 7-stage progressive color proofs.
5,000 sets of imperforate stamps.
2,000 sets of specimen overprinted stamps

In most cases 1,000 sets of imperforate specimen overprinted stamps and 3,000 sets of misperfed or missing color "errors" were also produced. Of them, most now appear to have been destroyed.

Most all specimen overprinted stamps, Imperforate stamps and errors were all printed at the time of reprinting as allowed by the "reprint agreement". Therefore all of them have finite numbers. With Tuvalu it was agreed to allow them to confiscate what they deemed as errors. Progressive color proofs are not errors but they confiscated and destroyed many of them before they could be saved. Most all imperforate specimen overprinted sets and quite a few imperforates and even some of the normal specimen overprinted sets were also taken. I do not know why they did not take all of them but theorize that because the evidence taken was so large, I am talking about many thousands of panes, that they just simply missed them. The evidence was just thrown into police evidence bags with no regard to the philatelic preservation what so ever! Thus sorting through the material was quite difficult. Again view the example shown at the top of the page. Try sorting through several hundred of those!

A NOTE ON THE SAINT VINCENT VARIETIES

For Saint Vincent it appears all material was retained and given back to the owner. Sadly because of poor storage damage did occur to some. Most was not damaged severely luckily so we have them today. Based on documents, the St. Lucia holding and purchases from the Saint Vincent holding we can solidly affirm quantities even though the Saint Vincent/Nevis side was auctioned off in bulk and subsequently placed into random lots and scattered around the world! Many of the progressive color proofs on the Saint Vincent side may never be reunited with their counterparts because of the way they were sold off for quick sales. I on the other hand, have done the work, organizing and counting all the Saint Lucia and Tuvalu side and it will be sold in an organized and knowledgeable manner.
I wish to note that certain series from Saint Vincent have two different specimen overprints. This shows us that a limited number of one version of the overprint were printed in the original printing which usually ranged 1,000 of which 565 were sent to the U.P.U. The reprints are of another version of the overprint. This appears to have happened only in a few cases. More research is needed here.

A NOTE ON THE MADE FOR COLLECTOR ERRORS

I have obtained some of the progressive color proof panes involved in the making of the errors. It really was a quite simple process of splitting a color into two different panes and then not running one of the panes through the full printing process thus creating the error of missing color. This technique was a little bit more advanced than the method of just not using a full color in the process and produced some interesting novelty errors such as pink trains etc.

The production of made for collector errors for the LOW Automobiles and Locomotives series was not as massively produced as some articles and rumors would like you to believe. Yes, if you study the documents you can see that the four values on the uncut press sheets were ordered but with the release of the Saint Vincent and Nevis side of the police evidence we are now finding that apparently only one value was actually saved from the big sheet runs in most cases. There are a couple series from the 1986 sets from some of the Eastern Hemisphere countries that appear all four values or most of them at least were saved. We base this on what has been found available on the internet. As far as the misperfed or shifted perf varieties, very few are on the market leading us to believe most were destroyed. One of the purposes of these pages is to show the numbers produced so if at any time in the future any new ones appear, collectors like you and me will know that they are not great rarities and one should not pay out a lot of money for them. $3-5.00 is all they are worth and only as a novelty or as an interesting addition to a collection.

I would also like to note that evidence shows that stamps with missing denominations and or country names are not made for collector errors at all! They had a purpose. Again in error they were added to the over exaggerated numbers of "errors" or "funnies" as some call them calculated by the articles and rumors spread to the collecting community.

I have created a special page with tables of links showing examples of the various progressive panes used to create the stamps including some of the made for collector errors. The links will take you to pages showing the progressive color proof panes and a closeup image of specific values from the different series to help collectors define which proof belongs to which series and value.

View the SPECIALIZED Saint Vincent Leaders of the World Automobiles and Locomotives Progressive Color Proofs Page here.
LET'S GET STARTED!

1st Series Automobiles issued November 9, 1983


75,000 sets of normal perforated issues were produced.



2,000 specimen overprinted sets produced according to general reprinting practices. No imperforate specimen overprinted sets seen on the market at present. 1,000 were produced.



This inverted specimen overprint error was found on the internet. It is unknown how many exist. At least one pane would have been made including 3 other values.



5,000 imperforate sets produced according to general reprinting practices. Unknown if all values still exist in this form.



The number of these proof presentation cards that exist is unknown but should be considered rarer in this form than off card.
At present only these values seem to exist on these cards.



The number of these gutter pairs that exist is unknown but should be considered very rare. Cross gutters even rarer.
Full uncut press sheets can be considered the rarest of all as most have been broken for gutters such as these.

At present there is no evidence that any other varieties exist for the 1st Automobiles series.
It is possible that they were produced but at present no others are known on the market.
At this time, no imperforate specimen overprinted nor progressive color proofs are available on the market.

1st Series Railway Locomotives issued December 8, 1983


75,000 sets of the normal perforated issues were produced.



2,000 specimen overprinted sets produced according to general reprinting practices. No imperforate specimen overprinted sets seen on the market at present. 1,000 were produced.

IMAGE COMING SOON

5,000 imperforate sets produced according to general reprinting practices. 3,000 more exist if counting from the Progressive Color Proofs



A second printing of Scott 708 was done to correct this error. It is not listed in catalogs but can be considered genuine.
The number of these that exist is unknown but should be considered semi-rare.



3,000 sets of progressive color proofs produced according to general original printing practices. All values of this series in panes was made available with the sales of the police evidence stock on eBay and all have been sold out.



The number of these gutter blocks that exist is unknown but should be considered very rare. Cross gutters even rarer.
Full uncut press sheets can be considered the rarest of all as most have been broken for gutters such as these.
This particular image is a gutter block from the corrected version of the $2.50 stamp and appears that a special sheet was made with only this value on it as the two pairs are the same.

At present there is no evidence that any other varieties exist for the 1st Locomotives series.
It is possible that they were produced but at present no others are known on the market.

2nd Series Railway Locomotives issued July 27, 1984


75,000 sets of normal perforated issues were produced.



2,000 specimen overprinted sets produced according to general reprinting practices. No imperforate specimen overprinted sets seen on the market at present. 1,000 were produced.



5,000 imperforate sets produced as limited printing according to general reprinting practices.



3,000 progressive color proof sets produced according to general original printing practices. All values of this series in panes was made available with the sales of the police evidence stock on eBay and all have been sold out.



3,000 perforated missing red stamp pairs produced according to reprinting practices. These are the imperforates from the progressive color proofs.
These were recovered from the police evidence stock thus we must therefore theorize that the error was originally produced at the time from the original printing. There would therefore be 3,000 imperforate missing red 50c stamp pairs. Additional 2,000 perforated pairs would have been produced at the time of original printing thus a total of 5,000 perforated pairs would exist.
None in perforated form seem to be available.
Notice the two red circles on the color color guide. On the error panes there is only one red circle.



The number of these gutter blocks that exist is unknown but should be considered very rare. Cross gutters even rarer.
Full uncut press sheets can be considered the rarest of all as most have been broken for gutters such as these.

At present there is no evidence that any other varieties exist for the 2nd Locomotives series.
It is probable that they were produced but they may be destroyed.
At this time, no other errors are available on the market.

2nd Series Automobiles issued October 22, 1984

Dangerous forgeries of this issue appearing first in 2015 are on the market. Perforated forgeries of this issue are spreading!
Visit the linked page to define all of them and what to avoid.

The Saint Vincent 1984 2nd Series Automobiles Forgeries.


75,000 sets of normal perforated issues were produced.



2,000 specimen overprinted sets produced according to general reprinting practices. No imperforate specimen overprinted sets seen on the market at present. 1,000 were produced.



5,000 imperforate sets produced according to general reprinting practices.



The number of these gutter blocks that exist is unknown but should be considered very rare. Cross gutters even rarer.
Full uncut press sheets can be considered the rarest of all as most have been broken for gutters such as these.



3,000 stamp pairs with shifted perforation errors produced according to reprinting practices.



The original printing of this stamp had the wrong date inscribed on the 1967 Pontiac GTO stamp pair. Dated 1964 instead of 1967.
When the reprinting was done in 1987 the inscribed date was changed to the correct date of 1967.
The quantities of the stamp pair with the wrong date are unknown but we can say they are quite common as the whole first printing had the error. The quantity of the stamp pair with the corrected date would most likely be 21,000 pairs as per the standard reprinting practices of the printer. The error can be considered genuine.

At present there is no evidence that any other varieties exist for the 2nd Automobiles series.
It is possible that they were produced but at present no others are known on the market.
At this time, no imperforate specimen overprinted nor progressive color proofs are available on the market.

3rd Series Railway Locomotives issued November 21, 1984

I have discovered recently created (2014) forgeries of this issue! Fake imperforate sets are on the market!
Don't get ripped off! View this page to define and avoid them.

1984 Saint Vincent 3rd Series Locomotives Fake Stamps

75,000 sets of normal perforated issues were produced.



2,000 specimen overprinted sets produced according to the reprint invoice. No imperforate specimen overprinted sets seen on the market at present. 1,000 were produced.



5,000 imperforate sets produced as limited printing according to the reprint invoice above.



The number of these gutter blocks that exist is unknown but should be considered very rare. Cross gutters even rarer.
Full uncut press sheets can be considered the rarest of all as most have been broken for gutters such as these.

At present there is no evidence that any other varieties exist for the 3rd Locomotives series.
It is shown that they were produced but at present no others are known on the market.
No progressive color proofs can be found for this series.

3rd Series Automobiles issued March 11, 1985
I have discovered recently created (2016) forgeries of this issue! Forgeries of the stamps perforated and imperforate are on the market!
Don't get ripped off! View this page to define and avoid them.

1985 Saint Vincent Automobiles 3rd Series Stamp Forgeries

75,000 sets of normal perforated issues were produced.

NEW INFORMATION!

With the selling of the police evidence stock the specimen overprinted panes for the 3rd series were released for sale on eBay as of June 27th, 2012 and have been sold out.
2,000 sets produced according to general reprinting practices. No imperforate specimen overprinted sets seen on the market at present. 1,000 sets would have been produced.



5,000 imperforate sets produced according to general reprinting practices.



The number of these proof presentation cards that exist is unknown but should be considered much rarer in this form than off card.


3,000 sets of progressive color proofs produced according to general original printing practices.



The number of these gutter pairs that exist is unknown but should be considered very rare. Cross gutters even rarer.
Full uncut press sheets can be considered the rarest of all as most have been broken for gutters such as these.
Notice the blank pane. This is done on many issues printed by the Format Printers when all four panes are not required.

At present there is no evidence that any other varieties exist for the 3rd Automobiles series.
At this time, no errors are available on the market.

4th Series Railway Locomotives issued April 26, 1985


75,000 sets of normal perforated issues were produced.



2,000 specimen overprinted sets produced according to general reprinting practices. No imperforate specimen overprinted sets seen on the market at present. 1,000 sets would have been produced.

IMAGE COMING SOON

5,000 imperforate sets produced as limited printing according to general reprinting practices.



3,000 sets of progressive color proofs produced according to original printing practices. I can only find the imaged value at this time. It appears to come from a press sheet noting the large selvage.



The number of these progressive color proof presentation cards that exist is unknown. They can be considered very low in numbers thus putting them in the category of rare.



The number of these gutter blocks that exist is unknown but should be considered very rare. Cross gutters even rarer.
Full uncut press sheets can be considered the rarest of all as most have been broken for gutters such as these.

At present there is no evidence that any other varieties exist for the 4th Locomotive series.

4th Series Automobiles issued June 7, 1985




75,000 sets of normal perforated issues were produced.



2,000 specimen overprinted sets produced according to the reprint invoice. No imperforate specimen overprinted sets seen on the market at present. 1,000 were produced.

NEW INFORMATION!

With the selling of the police evidence stock the specimen overprinted panes for the 4th series were released for sale on eBay as of June 27th, 2012 and have been sold out.
We now see that this variety of the overprint is being sold from the police evidence stock which now raises the question of which type is the reprint. More research into the two varieties of overprints is needed.

At present no specimen overprinted souvenir sheets seem to exist.



5,000 imperforate sets produced according to the reprint invoice.



3-5,000 imperforate souvenir sheets produced according to general printing practices.

At present time it appears no progressive color proofs of the single values of the Automobiles 4th series exists.



It is stated that only 8 sets of these exist. This is probably correct as many uncut press sheet sets of progressive color proofs for souvenir sheets only had one sheet saved of each example.



The number of these gutter blocks that exist is unknown but should be considered very rare. Cross gutters even rarer.
Full uncut press sheets can be considered the rarest of all as most have been broken for gutters such as these.

At present there is no evidence that any other varieties exist for the 4th Automobile series.

5th Series Railway Locomotives issued June 27, 1985


75,000 sets of normal perforated issues were produced.



2,000 specimen overprinted sets produced according to general reprinting practices. Noting it appears the two high values were never overprinted.



5,000 imperforate sets produced according to general reprinting practices.



3,000 progressive color proof sets produced according to original printing practices. All values exist this way.

At present there is no evidence that any other varieties exist for the 5th Locomotive series.

5th Series Automobiles issued January 27, 1986


75,000 sets of normal perforated issues were produced.



2,000 specimen overprinted sets produced according to general reprinting practices. No imperforate SPECIMEN overprinted sets seen on the market at present. 1,000 were produced.

The question rises if there exist specimen overprints in straight line form for this series as does with the 4th series automobiles.

IMAGE COMING SOON

5,000 imperforate sets produced according to general reprinting practices.



The number of these gutter pairs that exist is unknown but should be considered very rare. Cross gutters even rarer.
Full uncut press sheets can be considered the rarest of all as most have been broken for gutters such as these.



Errors of missing color exist for what appears to be all the values of this series. The two high values missing blue and all the lower values except the 60c missing yellow.

At present there is no evidence that any other varieties exist for the 5th Automobile series.

6th Series Railway Locomotives issued July 15, 1986


75,000 sets of normal perforated issues were produced.



2,000 specimen overprinted sets produced according to general reprinting practices. No imperforate specimen overprinted sets seen on the market at present. 1,000 were produced.

IMAGE COMING SOON

5,000 imperforate sets produced according to general reprinting practices.



1550+ of the missing green error were found in the archive. It is unknown how many actually exist but if the 6th series set was reprinted we can presume that 5,000 pairs probably exist. This is based on original printing of 2,000 and the reprinting of 3,000.
If the progressive color proofs exist then more than likely 3,000 imperforates exist.
This error is the only error noted in Stanley Gibbons for this series and the only one noted for all series of Automobiles and Locomotives for Saint Vincent.
Noting that in studying the final panes of this value the color guide shows the evidence of an eighth stage pane oddly enough being green It is the only value in all LOW trains and cars stamps for all countries involved where a separate green color proof pane was created.
This is the prototype for future "made for collector errors". All other errors of this type (pink trains etc.) used primary colors (red, blue, yellow) whereas this stamp used a secondary color being the green color to make the eighth color proof pane.
The reason SG notes the stamp is that apparently several were found to be actually postally used!
I theorize that the progressives for this value were probably destroyed or never produced in quantity because they would be evidence showing the intentional making of the error.



The number of these gutter blocks that exist is unknown but should be considered very rare. Cross gutters even rarer.
Full uncut press sheets can be considered the rarest of all as most have been broken for gutters such as these.

At present there is no evidence that any other varieties exist for the 6th Locomotive series.

As of May 5, 2012 only the 1st, 2nd, and half of the 5th series Locomotives progressive color proof panes were made available from the police evidence stock being sold via eBay. All have been sold out. It appears to mean there were no other series in the holding for St. Vincent.

This concludes the study of the varieties produced for the Leaders of the World Automobiles and Locomotives series issued by Saint Vincent. I hope that this clarifies the point that the stigma that millions were made of each issue is completely false and should be ignored by collectors and dealers of these issues. Because of a few biased and exaggerated opinions and written articles on these issues of which they have no evidence to back their claims the LOW stamp issues and varieties have been under valued and shunned by many for years. Sometimes the "experts" are not such experts as they have not completed the research needed to verify their claims.
I have, and this is for you.

Your friend and fellow collector and researcher,
JLowe

References taken from:
Stanley Gibbons Windward Islands and Barbados
Scott Catalog
Inventory list for the Format Archive by Robson Lowe
Documents obtained from the trial exhibits
Actual materials from the police evidence used in the trials
Online research
Documents obtained from the printers files that still exist
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