These three QV 5/- are in the same auction, one under the other. The first one has two Liverpool cancels (which suits my preference for Liverpool cancels), and is listed as "extra fine". The second, with a nice Jersey cancel is listed a step down as "fine-very fine". The third one has a heavy-ish registered cancel and some perf issues, yet is also listed as "extra fine", it also has a defect. The first one has full, complete perfs, but a slightly greasy cancellation, the second has a few blunt perfs but a clean almost face-free cancellation, the third has some blunt perfs and a defect. Which one has the best appeal for you and why?

Yes, they're still out there to be found. This is Victoria 1883 2d Mauve, SG211c, mixed perf 12 and 12½, catalogued at £750 used. However, this one is mint, which according to Stanley Gibbons, is unreported. Mixed perf means that on the same side of a stamp, the perforation gauge changes, due to the use of two different perforation combs. In this case, the vertical perfs are standard 12½, but the horizontal perfs change from 12½ to 12 at the O of Victoria. Of course if stamps aren't your thing, this is geek gobbledegook, but to philatelists it's a big deal. I paid more than I wanted to (C$361), but if it is what it appears to be, this is an exceedingly rare item and will do very, very, well at auction

I like the simplicity and the message here.

Stamps are quite small, but some contain masses of detail. Military history is another of my interests (my other community, Ancestral Warriors covers that), and I find the military detail on these stamps quite amazing. Individually, they're gorgeous, as a group, they're stunning Belgium, Battle of Waterloo 175th anniversary 1990 USA, Battle of Gettysburg 150th anniversary 2013 Poland, Battle of Grunwald 550th Anniversary 1960

I scanned this stamp and listed it for sale yesterday (Ceylon 1 rupee 1944), and had a real flashback to collecting stamps in the UK as a kid. The palm trees were exotic, strange, trees to me then, but they were on a lot of my stamps. That was part of the allure of collecting, free travel to faraway places. I'm surrounded by palm trees now and detest the damn things. They're forever dropping fronds and they attract spiders and mosquitoes. For reasons best known to someone else, this particular stamp triggered my deep-seated childhood memory. Weird.