As someone who has spent a lot of time collecting and studying the stamps of Barbados, I’m always interested when something different or unusual comes to my attention.

A couple of months ago, a friend of mine at our local Philatelic Society alerted me to a chap on Facebook who was selling some early Barbados Stamps. There’s nothing unusual in someone selling Barbados Stamps, but there is when they mention this website.

The seller in question had a range of early Barbados Britannia’s for sale, amongst some other very nice material. Clearly part of a large Commonwealth collection being broken up, the Barbados items were very good quality.

One item in particular caught my eye and that was a very nice copy of Barbados SG1. 

Underneath it the vendor had written that copies as good as this were hard to come by and that if people were sceptical of that claim then they should take a look at what I had written on this website in a 2020 article entitled “Is this the best ever Barbados Britannia stamp?”.

In the article I had written;

“So, whilst there may be others that would claim the title, today I am crowning this particular stamp the best Barbados Britannia ever.”

My evidence for this was the stamp had just got a certificate from the Royal Philatelic Society London, and it was a superb, four margin copy which, to my eyes, was unlikely to be bettered. The final factor, however, which led me to conclude that this was the best stamp ever, was the fact that it had taken me ten years to find. This is the stamp in question:

In the Facebook post, the vendor had written that he thought his copy was better than mine; that sounded like a challenge to me!

Having viewed the stamp I quickly wrote beneath it that not only was I the owner of the Barbados Stamps website (and thanks for the link), but that I thought his stamp might actually be better than mine. There was a doubt in my mind, however, as in the scan he had put on Facebook the stamp seemed a little too dark to be SG1, so I sent him a message in which I wrote;

“just saw your listing for SG1 and it is a magnificent stamp. I wondered if it had a cert with it as the shade seems a little dark for SG1 and looks more like SG2”

The reply was incredibly quick, and the vendor turned out to be a dealer called Harry Chapman who replied to me saying;

 “…the colour came out darker because I am in Thailand where I live and we are currently having an afternoon monsoon so the light was quite dark when I took the photos; no certificate but it came from Spink who should know”.

He then added;

“I would say if in doubt about SG1, don’t bid. All I can say is it came from Spink in London and they ought to know. I’m actually more than happy to keep it and almost didn’t list it because I love your story on your website about it. Fascinating. I’ll be happy if nobody bids”.

This was the stamp he had listed:

I needed no more invitation than that and quickly bought the stamp from him, along with several others that were simply too good to pass up.

I did worry that buying something this valuable from someone I didn’t know in Thailand might be questionable, but Harry was brilliant. Not only were the stamps absolutely genuine (all of them now have certificates from The Royal to prove it), his communication was quick and within a couple of days, despite him being unwell, he had been to the Post Office and sent them to me recorded delivery.

I’m familiar with Recorded Delivery from Thailand as another dealer I know lives out there and I occasionally buy items from him, so it was no surprise that within five days the stamps were on my desk. I must say that Thailand Post are fabulously efficient, more so than Royal Mail who this week delivered a first class letter to me that had been posted over a week ago. That letter, from the South of England, took longer to get to me than a letter from Thailand!

Anyway, Harry and I have corresponded over a great many Barbados items and as I am a co-editor of the second edition of “Barbados – The Britannia issues” I was able to bring some knowledge to bear to help with identifying one or two of the tricker items. And if you haven’t already bought a copy of this book and you collect Britannia’s – do it now!

If you need really high quality material, you should check out what Harry sells. To find him you will need to apply to join a group called “Stamp Collectors Auctions” on Facebook, and from there you can search for Harry Chapman. I know right now he’s taking break for Christmas but I have no doubt that in the New Year you will be able to pick up some more incredible stamp bargains from him.

In the meantime, the stamp in question now has its own certificate from The Royal and for the first time you can see both of them side by side. Whilst I’d like to declare a winner, frankly they are both lovely stamps and on that basis I’m happy to call it a draw. Unless you think differently, in which case, your comments are very welcome below!