It gives us great pleasure to offer the David Leathart FRPSL collection of Great Britain in our auction on 16th June 2026, which primarily features “SPECIMEN” overprints on the postage and telegraph issues as well as the postal stationery.
Unquestionably the collection has been a labour of love for David, and he has managed to form a collection of Specimen overprints the likes of which has not offered on the open market since the sale of the Marcus Samuel’s collection back in 2003. Hopefully this auction will encourage new collectors to step forward into an area of GB that there is limited information about. Searching through the indicies of the GB Journal brings up only a handful of articles, with the most thorough article on the general subject written by David himself (GB Journal vol.51 no.3 pp.56-64). Even in the Stanley Gibbons specialised catalogue there is a lack of information on the scarcity of different types as it doesn’t list them separately, grouping the rarest with the most common and stating a value as “from £XXX”. Even some of the illustrations of the different types are not up to scratch. Hence why I took the time to graphically produce our own table of the Specimen types in the introduction of the catalogue.
So below I illustrate each type which is as per the Stanley Gibbons listing which is in approximately chronological order, with some comments from David and what I have picked up.
As a GB specialist and collector
learn something new
Dr Perkins
SGcatalogue not fit for purpose
Type 1
Your content goes here. Edit or remove this text inline or in the module Content settings. You can also style every aspect of this content in the module Design settings and even apply custom CSS to this text in the module Advanced settings.
Type 2
Type 2 shows the first “E” with a short base stroke and a middle stroke which is longer than both top and bottom strokes. It is also known struck vertically.
Type 3
Type 3 is only vertical and only on the 1855 4d carmine. It’s very similiar in style to type 4 but more widely spaced.
Type 4
Type 4 is only on No Corner Letters stamps.
Type 5
Type 5 is on Small and Large Corner Letters.
Type 6
Type 6 often appears with a broken top to the “P” and sometimes with a slightly shorter and slightly curved right upright on the “N”.
Type 7
Type 7 is slightly taller and bolder than type 6 and appears only on 5 stamps, all of which are unique; 1857 1d plate 35, 1861 2d plate 9, 1856-7 4d rose, 6d plate 1 and 1s plate 1, which were produced for a presentation set.
Perkins Bacon
Type 8
Type 9
There are at least 8 sub-types of Type 9.
Type 10
Type 11
Type 12
Type 13
Type 13 whilst similar to type 9 is smaller.
Type 14
Type 15
Type 16
So, what is so special about collecting SPECIMEN and CANCELLED OP’s? Well, there seems to be about 360 or so Postage stamps with SPECIMEN OP’s on them. There are somewhat fewer CANCELLED OP’s. I think there are about 220 Postage SPECIMEN OP’s in this sale. This is how I see where SPECIMEN OP’s fit into a collection. Collectors need to be aware that the OP Handstamps can very similar. Types 1 and 2 look the same but on Type 2 the bottom stroke of the ‘E’ is shorter. Types 8, 10 and 11 seem the same but Type 8 is shorter than or 11 Type 10 has a broad ‘M’ and Type 11 a narrow ‘M’. Then the Dr Perkins stamps has an unrecorded OP, though Samel mentions it. It looks like a Type 10 but longer so a Type 10A?
There are also some stamps can be found with several different OP’s. E.g. 1867 10d Red-Brown a lovely stamp can be found with Types 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, and 11, so there are 7 stamps to collect. The 1867 2/- Blue has Types 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 and 11 so further 7 to collect.
1. Is a common stamp with a common SPECIMEN OP Types 6, 8, 9 & 11. E.g. 1887 Jubilee low value Type 9. There are about 115 Type 9 OP’s with about 8 different versions.
2. Is a Common stamp with a Rare OP Types 1, 2, 3, 7, 13 & 16 and CANCELLED 14 and 18. E.g. 1855 4d Small Garter Type 3. The first Surface Printed stamps.
3. Is a Rare stamp with a Common OP. E.g. Types 6, 8, 9 & 11. E.g. 1880 2/- Brown Type 9.
4. The ultimate is a Rare stamp with a Rare OP. E.g. Types 1, 2, 7, 13 & 16 and 14 & 18. E.g. 1862 3d Carmine with dots, Abnormal stamp with Type 2. There is only one known of this stamp with an OP.
5. Extras are given to Double or Treble Overprinted OPs and Inverted OPs.
This Auction mainly devoted to SPECIMEN and CANCELLED OP’s is the first I am aware of since the Spink Marus Samuel one of 2003 same year as Harmers Koh-I-Noor Auction. The earliest is Harmers of 1983.