Stamp rarities in Postmuseum, Stockholm

Sweden: 8 skilling banco 1855, imperforated

Count Pehr Ambjörn Sparre designed, engraved and printed the 1855 skilling banco series. He also designed a perforating machine for sheet perforation. This was the first of its kind in the world.

If too many stamp sheets were perforated at the same time, the bottom sheet could remain entirely or partially imperforated.

Of the 8 skilling banco, only two imperforated copies are known.

Donated by count Eric von Rosen, 1929.

Sweden: Ring type perf. 13, the 20/Tretio error, 1879

This error was printed in 1879, when a damaged 20 öre cliché was replaced with a spare cliché for the 30 öre stamp. The figures "30" were cut out and replaced with the centre of a 20 öre cliché. By mistake the text "Tretio" ("Thirty") was not replaced.

6.000 sheets, with 100 stamps on each, had been printed and partly distributed to local post offices when the error was discovered. Some 970 of the 6.000 printed copies escaped the postal recall.

Sweden: 5 öre Oscar II brown, 1891



King Oscar II, 5 öre in brown instead of green colour. Plate proof from 1891 in the colour of the value 30 öre. By mistake one of these proof sheets was bundled with some normal 30 öre stamps from the first printing in sheets distributed to foreign postal services.

The postal authorities in Germany notified the error and it was found that fifty-five copies had been sent out to eleven countries. Only about ten copies are known to exist today.

Sweden: Inverted surcharge on a 12 öre official stamp, 1889

To clear the stocks of the 12 and 24 öre official stamps, redundant after rate reductions at the end of 1884, these stamps were overprinted with the value 10 öre.

Four sheets (200 stamps) of the 12 öre received an inverted overprint.

Donated by count Eric von Rosen, 1929

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