SHE-AM0179-Aw ½ P Engravers Guild Ungummed 
SHE-AM0021-Bw 2P Seamstress Guild Pink Ink Sport 
SHE-AM0059-Bw 2P Seamstress Guild Plum Ink Sport
SHE-FO0090-Aw Owlswick Jenkins ½ P Post office Forgery Minisheet/Block of 4
SHE-AM0220-Aw Penny Patrician 6th Birthday (Blue)
SHE-AM0215-Aw Glorious 25th of May Penny Patrician Lilac
SHE-RW0011-Aw Cunning Artificers Birthday Shield Only 1 thought to exist
SHE-RW0006-Aw Stanley Gibbons 150th Anniversary Only 1 thought to exist
SHE-AM0122-Bw Guild of Heralds Y-front Sport Only 1 thought to exist
SHE-AM0005-Ad 5P Morporkia Blue Digital Print Only 1 thought to exist
Unlisted Yellow Perforator Stamps Only 1 thought to exist
Unlisted Ramoth of Pern Only 1 thought to exist
Unlisted Quantum Butterfly Only 1 thought to exist 
Unlisted Tower of Art 2007 including all 3 Sports & 6 Penny Patrician “Alice” Sports Only 1 thought to exist
Unlisted Here Be Dragons Only 100 thought to exist
Unlisted Ghost sheet of TOA stamps (Hogswatch 2009 Prize) Only 1 thought to exist 
Unlisted Irish Convention
Unlisted Stamp magazine 75th birthday stamps Only 1 thought to exist
Unlisted Oversized Assassin’s Guild re-print stamps (never released)
Unlisted Sunshine Somerset stamps 2006. Used on Wincanton Postcards 
Unlisted Assassin’s Guild re-print stamps never released
Unlisted 2010 Convention Sheet
Unlisted The Uberwald Convention stamp sheet Only 30 thought to exist

Here is the start of a section on Proof sheets. I've got to confess that I know little or nothing about Proof sheets, having done no research on them at all. I'm going to need a lot of help with this section. In fact, I really need some kindly expert on proof sheets to fill in this section. 

SHP-AM0006-An (?)Proof sheet of the Zombie with the bottom 3 rows overprinted 3p Only 40 thought to exist
Unlisted The Uberwald Convention proof sheet Only 20 thought to exist

Other newer collectors, (like me) could still marvel at the level of ingenuity that managed to produce sports and variants so subtle that they have gone undetected thus far.

 

I came up with some words for the Quoth and Raven stamps to fill top and bottom where the stamp value and Ankh-Morpork were intended to go and rebooted them as labels.

 

Then came the final ingredient of the Christmas pudding was that Terry then decided he wanted 50p in numbers instead of words - so the remaining original design had to be altered.

 

By this time I had already printed the One Penny, Two Penny and Fifty Pence versions of the three stamps and posted these to the shop. As it was getting close to launch (and unbeknown to me at the time) the original Fifty Pence design became a sport version of the new 50p - and some of the perforated original One Penny and Two Penny stampsheets were returned to me rather than thrown away. Presumably the shop still have all the others. 

 

By the way, a while back I put some of the loose 1p and 2p pairs and singles on eBay and was accused by the shop, on their forum, of 'reconstructing' these from the old 50p artwork!  Anyone who looked closely would have realised that as they had actually been perforated at the shop, it was obvious that Bernard knew all about them and had been complicit in their production. What tosh - according to the forum message I was going to be spoken to, apparently, but nothing happened so I can only assume their collective memories cleared!

 

Anyway, sorry Keith, short answer is if they are 'Sticky Bits' they are relatively worthless, if they are 1p and 2p (but I don't remember seeing any sheets of 16 unless Bernard has sold them or given them away at an auction) then they are rare and worth whatever someone else will pay for them - but as historical items not as Discworld stamps as they were never released as such.

 

As far as the list above goes, I think the accepted wisdom on the CA forum is that if they were not originally available from the shop in Wincanton then they are not officially 'Discworld' so Charles has sensibly chosen to leave the 1p and 2p designs that have leaked out off his list. 

 

I always thought Discworld stamps were supposed to emanate from Ankh-Morpork, or at the very least, originating from Terry Pratchett or his books - but it now seems that a Discworld stamp can be created as the result of an opinion poll by collectors, even the decision about printing definitives this year; it doesn't seem right to me, but I wouldn't expect anyone else to agree!  Of course, I am biased 

 

I think this could be a useful thread for collectors here to add to, and would encourage everyone to make the most of it...

 

I will have a think about what short-run items we produced, that everyone knew about, that ought to go on the list...

 

And by the way Charles - great work! That must have taken you ages...  Like Steve James DW stamp history website it makes me wonder why the shop do not already have this sort of information available for their collectors, surely they are the best qualified to produce it?  What would they do there without people like you, Steve James, Kel and Doc?

 

 

 

Keith - you wouldn't believe me if I told you.  I suppose I could bring along some evidence to Stampex... what's it worth?! 

 

 

 

I am very happy to look through entire collections - when I have done this in the past I have usually found oddities and rarities for people,  no problem.

 

I agree with you Daniel, all DW stocks are cinderellas, whether labels or stamps, easy to forget that sometimes! 

 

I might take the above sport hint off after a couple of days, just so only our forum members get to see it. What do you think?  Perhaps I should make it a regular feature!

This one I will take off after 100 views. I think enough people will have seen it by then and I won't run the risk  of derailing Charles' thread.  If I do it again I will start a new thread.

 

 

Out of the 16 posts currently in this thread half are already yours so i think it a little disingenuous to kindly offer not to derail it 

 

There are already over 85 views on this thread so perhaps you should keep it on a little longer to allow others to see it. Or start another thread. With a more interesting sport, please?!  I think it would be a great idea to have a 'sports-drop' here, I still have lots of the early stamps and it would be fun to dig them out and go through them again for new sports. I am sure I still have all the Regimental booklets from 2005.

 

And I agree its a splendid piece of work Charles, though a little disturbing that this already long list is of just the rarities of Discworld stamps, not the whole range. I wouldn't want to be a collector starting now even though the prices on the secondary market have dropped so dramatically since the early days. There seem to be so few new collectors now, everyone seems to have everything they can easily afford and it's now about topping up with the new ones and saving up for the rarer ones as they come up for sale on the secondhand market.

 

Nice to see it busy here though - nine members on at present.  Must drop in more often.

 

I'll take it off in the morning, and Charles can have his thread back, with my apologies 

Colin... How's about a simple yes or no answer..

Question: Might it be the case that some of the AM definitives in the years 1-4 which accepted wisdom says have no sports actually do but have thus far been undiscovered?

 

Andy has a point, better to keep this thread as a listing of known rare stamps than turn it into a thread about unknown sports.

 

The answer to your question is No - all sports I am aware of on the first four years of the definitives have been discovered.  But I'm not going to go through this process for every series of stamps in the archive!

 

I will take out the reference to the sport later this morning, I am sure enough people have read it now to go look for it.

 

 

Still happy to look at people's collections though, you never know... 

Never mind... If you were to tell us about them I'd only get more depressed about more "impossible to obtain" sports, and my list of those is long enough as it is. 

Alan often emails me when he has seen a particular stamp come up for sale, but we can't always remember whether it should be the 'unknown' sport or the standard version and usually by the time one of us has gone back through stuff to find out, the auction has ended.  We really should be more interested I suppose 

 

All this new fangled stuff about SH numbers makes the task so time-consuming and complicated, I can't imagine what new potential collectors think when they see a stamp being listed - is it helpful or offputting to see such anal devotion to what started out as a bit of fun.  I remember when the collection first started and Terry would say in interviews that our cindys had opened up stamp collecting to a generation who had either given up stamp collecting, or had never started, considering it old-fashioned and crusty. By emulating the SH-dedicated real stamp world of SH, isn't there a risk that we are repeating the dangers of making the hobby look too elitist, and so established that starting a collection in year seven, when those SH numbers are already so long, is already too high a mountain to climb?  Shouldn't there still be an element of FUN?

 

Anyway - much easier to cut and paste someone else's listing without having to visit the new, slavishly-adhered to, underworld of dexter and sinister - so have lots of pdfs of well described stamps, variants even I don't remember; and stamp artwork that has leaked from the shop, apparently as a one-off, that I have copies of.  Should come in handy one day.

 

 

It's not been a good week....

Don't blame you, best of luck to you and your lady wife, here's hoping you both come through this difficult time unscathed.

 

I once had one of the buyers contact me about their copy - which Bernard had told them was one of just 10 and apparently cost them a princely £25 - with a view to getting it signed and I was highly amused to see that it was simply a re-scanned version of the proof we had produced earlier for the Assassin's stamps, but with the Hogswatch stamp photoshopped over the Assassin's stamp artwork! 

 

Most amusing of all was that the artist details at the foot of the design had not been updated - so Bernard's initials as retailer,  my initials as designer, and Alan's initials as illustrator of the Assassin's stamps were still there - but not Paul Kidby's, whose illustration the proof actually professed to show.  Even the colour of the text had been left unchanged from the Assassins proof - so a red/green stamp design with a grey, purple and black page - patently out of keeping with the Hogswatch theme.

 

I can't imagine how the artwork ever got passed by Sandra Kidby at PJSM Prints or by Paul Kidby himself with the wrong artist credit details - I am sure they or Terry would have spotted that when they were sent their file copies or sign-off sample artwork?  And I am sure Sandra would have been sent a copy as she was extremely keen to make sure that Paul's artwork was only used for the purpose she had agreed and copyright licence contracted for - perhaps someone should ask her, or Paul - if any of the 10 Proofs should ever come to light.

 

Somewhere in my files I will have a photo of the Proof but I haven't been able to find it - but I am pretty sure the buyer was called Bex or Becca and she lived on the South Coast - and presumably there are still another 9 out there amongst the faithful, probably sat safely in a drawer since the day they were bought.  If I remember correctly, her copy had been signed by Bernard, so it wasn't pinched from a bin or given as a one-off gift.

 

So - a real oddity as it has a (serious!) mistake on it, it's a piece of artwork sold out very quickly at a one-off event, of which only 10 were sold (for far more than an 'ordinary' proof) and which would be brilliant to get signed by Paul Kidby!  Rare I would say, and indicative of so many things prevalent in the early days of the stamps - I am sure many more examples of this sort of thing will emerge.

 

If I can think of anything else I will log it here.

 

 

 

 

2005 Hogswatch stamps didn't have a Proof as far as I am aware - but please correct me if wrong.

 

Colin wrote: 2005 Hogswatch stamps didn't have a Proof as far as I am aware - but please correct me if wrong.

No, other than your post above now changed, I've no recollection of hearing anything about any proof sheet for Hogswatch 2005. So, we can probably say with a reasonable degree of certainty that there wasn't one. Not even a "secret" one like the Hogswatch 2004 one seems to have been.

 

"There has been much speculation about the apparent absence of a sport for the Bonk 1 bizlot. With Colin Edwards in the frame, it seemed unlikely that there wasn't some mischief afoot, but we can promise you, there isn't a sport.

 

"But there are seven variations. As the moon above Discworld waxes and wanes, the transition from werewolf to man will take place, little by little. In a 32 day cycle each transitional phase will appear as a variation. A new LBE will be brought out to coincide with each new issue, with the special stamp appearing at a ratio of one in every 50, and will remain available for 64 days to give you as much time as possible to secure each new design.

 

...

 

"Such exquisite and prolonged torture could only have been designed by Colin, so please address all complaints to him!"

 

However, as larger numbers of the first variant started being found in the Light of the Moon LBEs than would have been anticipated by a 1:50 ratio, speculation began as to whether the ratio had been favourably altered. I do not recall any "official" confirmation one way or the other.

 

There is quite a lot of discussion about this at http://www.discworldstamps.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?p=389651#p389651 - http://www.discworldstamps.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?p=389651#p389651  and following.

 

One thing that gets mentioned is that both Frank the Younger and Miss Tick were apparently told how many there were of the first variant - Frank says 240 and Miss Tick says 250.

 

However, it's not entirely clear what this number might refer to. It could be the number released via LBE or the number produced (note that 68 of each variant ended up on the special Bonk Transformations covers - 60 of which were sold via "general release" by the shop) or something else.

 

 

 

My original idea was that they should just quietly transform without announcement or ceremony but as this would have meant opening unsold LBEs and monitoring the number of days each was sold, this was discarded in favour of the more mechanical method. 

 

One interesting conversation I remember having with Terry was how frequent would the lunar cycle on Discworld be - would it reflect our months, how do you filter in the 8 day week etc.  I must find the emails again one day and publish them.

 

I could probably find out how many sheets were printed of each transformation, though as with every stamp produced, this will bear no relation to numbers of stamps released to collectors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And one of only 5 out there - not 10; and signed by Terry too

 

 

It looks thrown together, either rushed out for Hogswatch weekend or just lacking in inspiration from the start; here are some design elements, throw them in the air and let's see how it all looks when it lands. There is no sense of proportion, no focal point (OK, a big stamp, but it doesn't dominate the space, it just hangs there...) not even a sense of it being an authentic proof, like a working utilitarian item for the printer let alone as a commemorative for the collector.

 

The nicest bits are the florid calligraphic elements at the top and bottom, but we have seen these before on the Assassin's proofs, and better employed as a feature, a backdrop to the stamp not sized up or down to fit the space; workmanlike, practical yet elegant.

 

I have seen, and bought, a lot of your designs Colin, but this one is so disappointing that for all its rarity I don't think it would warrant a place in my collection and I would never part with £25 for it. You must have been having an off-day so I will forgive you  

 

 

Whatever one's opinion about the design concept and execution, it is, as Colin says and I would agree, a very interesting item in terms of Discworld stamp history and evidence of the way things in the early days were, not surprisingly, somewhat made up as everyone went along as it began to emerge that flataly might be more than one set of stamp designs for the release of Going Postal.

 

The sheer rarity (five only!) of something that was apparently sold on "general release" in the shop (as opposed to being a raffle prize or sold at one of the charity auctions) is noteworthy.

 

Hogswatch 2004 was presumably the first Wincanton event at which the stamps were on sale at the shop and you can just imagine the conversation in the shop that there were people in town with money to spend on stamp-related products and not actually that many products for them to spend their money on and what could be "rustled up" to tap into the available spending power. Nothing wrong with a bit of entrepreneurial thinking to my mind.

 

From a purely investment perspective, I can think of several completist collectors who would probably pay significantly in excess of £25 on ebay for a rare item like this, with the only thing against it being that it is a proof sheet rather than an actual cinderella stamp and it would seem that proof sheets and covers are less collected/collectable and hence less valued than the stamps themselves, which is, I suppose, no great surprise although, personally, I have always been a fan of the proof sheets in general as I like the "production process" conext in which they purport to place the stamp design.

 

What always bothers me is how rarity can affect the perceived value of any collectable. If something is truly horrible and does not sell, yet is part of a range that does sell well, then because it is less common, the grotty item will become more valuable than the better-crafted items.  It seems wrong, but perhaps marks the line between those who collect because they like something and those who collect for potential profit.

 

My favourite Proof was one we did of the Toys Is Me Hogswatch stamp. It was mocked up to look like an old-fashioned 'scatter proof.'

 

[A scatter proof was a way of checking the quality of several pictures all at once - because each picture would be separated by camera onto film it was often easier and quicker to lay all the separated films down in registration to make one set of proofing plates than to wait to paste those pictures into the film for the whole job in order to proof everything in its final laid-out position. So you would end up with a large sheet of paper with all of the colour illustrations just loosely spread out (hence 'scattered') on the page without text or backgrounds. If there was a problem with any of the pictures it could be noted and amended without slowing down the assembly of the rest of the job. Because of this pictures for several jobs would often end up on the same large sheet, sometimes even mixtures of different project, drawn together to save time and money.] 

 

Our scatter proof combined some mocked-up press advertising for Toys Is Me with the stamps, plus some rough hot metal typesetting, and some illustrations of girls and boys Hogswatch stockings, randomly placed (but with a sense of layout and composition Andy will be pleased to know!) plus some of the artwork from the first day cover for good measure.  And we even roughed and scuffed the plate artwork, poorly spread the inks at the edges, and added a dusty footprint and fingerprints to make it look as if the proof had been discarded and generally treated at the Teemer and Spools works as an item of no value or consequence - just as it would have been in 'real' life.

 

The proof was bundled with some other items and sent down to the shop to be included in the auction items for Hogswatch - but even though it was sent by Special Delivery it didn't make it to the event in time to be included and was (happily) returned to me.  Shame really, my favourite proof and a one-off design that no-one outside the shop got to see, I think it would have made for some good bidding.

 

Good times.

 

 

 

I really like hearing about the days of the old Discworld stamps as they were the ones that started it all.  We wouldn't have this forum without them.

 

But wouldn't you be better off saving all this up for a proper publication one day? It would make a very interesting book, all this background information.  You could even illustrate it with photographs of the Proofs etc, not detailed enough to become a copyright problem but sufficient for collectors like me to pore over.

 

You could call it 'Making Money - the Truth about Going Postal' 

 

Does that make sense?

 

 

 

Its complicated but not impossible.  The advent of digital books has made that a very attractive proposition, both creatively and financially (from a setting-up point of view rather than profit), and would allow such a document to be updatable too as more information came to hand. 

 

I certainly wouldn't want a book title that implied Terry had somehow benefitted from our stamps at someone else's expense.

 

There are lots of different angles to take and mine would probably be a very personal one about how we both got involved, the reasons why we became involved, and the people who developed and shaped the first four years of production - many of these were from outside Discworld and had a lot to contribute that has never really been talked about. 

 

There have been a few attempts at describing the beginnings of the stamps but a fuller picture needs to be developed before a complete history can be established. 

 

Two of these have surfaced publicly since. One at each of the last two conventions.

 

It does feel oddly balanced, and does have the feel of something Bernard has thrown together for charity auctions, but this is part of the charm, and often makes these types of items more desirable than the production items.

 

And I know all this because I have one, and help with the auctions.

 

Well done Pete! So what number is yours? and any chance of a decent piccie?  Mine was pinched from a third party source.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Discworld-Stamps-50p-Cabbage-Green-Sheet-UNIQUE-/280626022078?pt=UK_Stamps_BritishStamps&hash=item41569d46be#ht_824wt_1139 - http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Discworld-Stamps-50p-Cabbage-Green-Sheet-UNIQUE-/280626022078?pt=UK_Stamps_BritishStamps&hash=item41569d46be#ht_824wt_1139

As this sheet was never available for sale and may be the only one of it's kind, (though I suspect there might be one more somewhere), I think it may be of considerable interest to a collector with some spare cash.

 

It ought to be this one - sent to the printers in Holland 25/06/04

 

When Bernard says there is only one, and even signs a piece of paper to prove it, knowing that the collector intends to sell that sheet, then surely that MUST mean there are no others out there. 

Maybe at the time the piece of paper was signed

 

I am sure it will become valuable to someone one day! 

 

It sounds odd to me that he has only now found out how rare his one remaining sheet actually is.

 

Why is nothing about Discworld Stamps ever very clear?

 

 

 

Mine and Hannah's is number 3.

I'll sort a picture out at some point.

 

One of each UU Transformations sheet.

These were in last year's Convention auction, as a set.

We have them.

 

Thieves

4p Mark 1 - withdrawn by Terry

The butterfly, dragon and dolphin prize sheets are different to the ones used by the shop for post, I believe.

 

How much nicer and informative this thread is on our forum! 

 

I think it is amusing that on the other forum my previous input to the stamps is discussed as though I am now dead or somewhow unable to read it.

 

For example, does anyone truly believe that DW episodes such as those Merchants and Tower of Art stamps I inkjet printed and put on eBay envelopes were allowed without the collusion of the shop and that the 'Scorpion Pit' fun that followed was not just another way to sell LBEs?   It gets referred to now as a punishment, and the stamps 'unauthorised' yet I supplied the picture for the LBE and we carried on designing stamps for a fair few years after that!  If I had acted without absolute consent then I have no doubt someone else would have been given the task!  The ebay stuff, and the stamps on the envelope, were all produced and sold to pay for the display pop-up I produced for Stampex 2005, nothing more sinister. Those Merchant stamps were prototypes produced as an alternative idea to the Cabbage stamps and GCTS program - Bernard, Alan and I had discussed at Stampex - hence the Auctioneer/ Brass etc themes... yet now they are declared to be somehow illicit.  And those prototype Hogswatch 2005 1p and 2p stamps - they are perforated by the shop! And yet, repeatedly we hear, apparently they were produced without the shop's knowledge...  The reason such nonsense is perpetuated, I would suggest, is because the latest self-proclaimed authorities on DW lore do not have them in their collections.

 

Perhaps that blue 4p Merchants stamp 'Angels' found will be treated with the same confused reception - was its method of release authorised? did it ever actually exist when it wasn't for sale in the shop? when the next generation of unfortunates are tasked with writing the history.

 

I am bitter and biased. of course! 

 

 

Was this printers error on every sheet or just a few?

As to your virtual invisibility, I understand similar things happened to people in eastern bloc countries... It's part of being designated an un-person. 

 

It seems odd to only perf the extremities of the sheet, normally perfers would go from one side of the sheet to the other in both directions, not round the edges first!

 

Did you buy the sheet from eBay or through the shop?

 

 

 

 . . . as someone who was there in those early days, I can not allow you to speak in such a way, whether in fun or seriously, without a comment in your 'defence'.

 

BP always took advantage of the somewhat over inflated opinion that he had of himself. Once you had left, his 'memory' would allow whatever 'truth' turned a profit. Trouble was, we all willingly encouraged him - oft times with cake. We have ourselves to blame for being taken for however many yards. I left when the integrity of the product strayed from the idea, that 'in the beginning was the word'.

 

This is a much happier place to be, and you and other people here produce a fine, professional product that more than satisfies my needs.

 

Perhaps Jean-Louis could tell us where he got hold of it.  Just luck I suppose.

 

I have been also meaning to ask him where he gets his stamp printing and perfing done - perhaps there is a source out in France we are not aware of.

 

 

 

I don't suppose Terry has been as involved in the stamps for some time now, and having seen the TV documentary about his illness which illustrated, even in those very early days, his ability to assimilate and evaluate shapes in context, even if he were involved I cannot see that it would be to the same degree as when the stamps first started. The number of simple errors which slip through the cracks, such as RAMTOP stamps instead of RAMTOPS stamps - and indeed that Ramtops, a region not a state, should be given stamps at all - show how relaxed that relationship has now become, and probably for all the best reasons.  

 

He was sharp as a tack and a complete pleasure to work with. Thank goodness, with Rob's devotion, his writing continues.

 

 

That toyshop keeper on the stamp and in the movie, looks a lot like Ankh-Morpork's award-winning author whose picture appears in Vimes' nursery, in 'Where's My Cow?' - so what is going on there, too? 

 

It's all Quantum, of course.  

 

 

 . . . surely Daniel, Ladies first.