British Commonwealth
Specimens & Cancelled
Specimen stamps were overprinted or perforated with the word 'SPECIMEN' to prevent them from being used. It was difficult to keep track of what stamps were valid or not in the 19th century so specimen stamps were issued to help different countries up to date. Most of the specimen stamps did not survive so they can be quite valuable. Printing ‘Cancelled’ on stamps served a similar purpose as it was designed to stop a stamp from being used again fraudulently. Similar to specimen stamps cancelled stamps can be extremely valuable.
