Rob1956

The rare 1942 4d koala fully imperforate was on the 1947 "official" list of stolen stamps, but as far as the Melbourne Note printing Branch was concerned, no examples had been seen on the market and it seemed to the MNPB that all examples stolen were amongst the material confiscated.
The stamp shown also has printers ink on the selvedge.
Yet one pane was missing (80 stamps in all), it is unknown how many of these stamps survived.

 
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Rob1956

re: Fully imperforate 1938 4d Koala

Hi Horamakhet

Though there were originally 80 that existed outside of the Melbourne Note Printing Branch, it is believed only 30 exist today, it is quite rare. There is an oblong crease going from top right to just a few centimetres from the design to the bottom right, this in itself I see as historical as the employee who stole the stamps creased the pane when hiding it - it was done in the Printing Branch.

Rob

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Rob1956

re: Fully imperforate 1938 4d Koala

Hi Kapul

That is a very good analysis's to the fate of the remainder. A pane of 80 was originally bought by a dealer at the time the thief was selling them, the police visited most of the dealers and collector's they knew had some of the stolen stamps and confiscated them, but not all those that had some of the stolen stamps were located and eventually after many years found their way onto the market.

This stamp was part of joined pair, there have been blocks of 4 located and cut into singles. In the ACSC it was mentioned that only one pane of this rarity existed, which means only 80 existed outside of the Printing Branch.

A pair of £1 Coronation stamps with severe printing ink stains were separated and sold just recently, though there is very little interest in them. If I can find one I will add it to my collection of stolen stamps from the 1947 theft.

I will definitely keep up with any stamps I find.

Rob

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