Rob1956

The 1949 ½d with foggy hills is a master plate flaw; the retouch is one of the most extensive of all commonwealth retouches. It was first noted in March 1951; the relevant electro was withdrawn later in the year.

This particular variety has a “G NSW” perfin (the foggy hills stamp is on the right, the left stamp is a normal comparison to the variety); the first one seen with a government perfin.

The recut is the dark shading lines above the hill.

What makes these stamps interesting is that the foggy hills stamp may have been pilfered by a staff member who collects stamps, which kind of defeats the original purpose of the government perfin.

This is a well-centred horizontal pair in MUH, scarce and unlisted.

 
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Horamakhet

08 Apr 2021
07:33:50pm

re: NOT YOUR AVERAGE FOGGY HILLS RETOUCH

Hi Rob,

Very good illustration of the foggy hills. I will have to check all mine to see if I can find one.

Not having much luck lately with finds.

Horamakhet

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Rob1956

re: NOT YOUR AVERAGE FOGGY HILLS RETOUCH

Hi Horamakhet

The foggy hills is quite recognisable, and this variety has various degrees of the hills fading, I have a few varieties, one where the hill is nearly gone.

Rob

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Rob1956

re: NOT YOUR AVERAGE FOGGY HILLS RETOUCH

Hi Horamakhet

Happy to be the cause of your tangent, it sometimes reaps rewards.

The top stamp is definitely a foggy hills variety; it isn’t a broken branch, the foggy hills was due to ink stripping and the tree was also affected, and in many cases the extended branch was affected to a point that most of it was missing.

I cannot say whether or not the second stamp has a flaw extending from the back of the wallaroo as I need to see the stamp enlarged, it would need to be the same shading as the wallaroo (Being partially colour blind the enlargement helps).

With the third stamp you would need to place a regular stamp beside the stamp you say shows colour missing adjacent to the last “A” of AUSTRALIA” and up to the bottom of the tree (Again my partial colour blindness gets in the way and an enlargement will help).

The fourth stamp is probably due to too much light exposure rather than ink stripping.

I can definitely see the colour flaw at top left of the stamp on the right of the joined pair, but did you know that the stamp on the left is a re-entry (the tell-tale heavy lines is seen at the top right corner of the cancellation, behind “BANE” of “BRISBANE”, directly under the canopy of the tree).

Rob

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