King George stamps & some French too!

I know these stamps probably aren't worth much of anything monetarily but they seen to have captured my attention and I would like to learn more about them. Their identification of course but moreso when these were used the tiny but noticeable differences (especially the ½p green K.G.'s) to look out for and information on starting a decent collection of them. I heard someone mention the term "Downeyhead" and would like to know which one and why they are called that? I'm very curious about early British stamps (and the more recent Machin's of course).
Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thank you -Jeffrey

Here are the British ones I would like to collect someday.


Here are some French stamps I really enjoy looking at.

 

Here are some what I believe to be British stamps as well. Please correct me if I' mistaken. I see all the symbols in the corners so I thought British (eg: rose, thistle, shamrock, daffodils )



Canadian stamps too!

 

I like that 2 cent King George from Canada. It is like he is looking at me

 

Looks like a mugshot sort of! lol

 

You are correct they top 4 are British KGVI dark colour set issued 1937 You have Normal/Sideways and Inverted watermarks to look for LOL

 

I'm really starting to take a fancy to the "Downy heads". That may be a collecting interest in the future. (I am currently accepting donations...lol)

 

researching my Downy head I believe it is a Scarlet, Die 2, Single Crown Watermark- S.G.#341 Sound right to you? The watermark is identical to Skilo's "N1" example and I have the S.G. color chips and it lines up with the scarlet chip. Also the postmark is of 1912 (July 3). I think I'm onto it now!​

Info for my research I got from this link - http://www.stampcommunity.org/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=12112&whichpage=2&SearchTerms=skilo54​

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Fully shaded lion, second line in wreath is clear through -​

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what's this one?

Also I copied these pics from another site (Wikipedia) because I didn't feel like scanning a thousand singles. The ones I have are identical in every way however sans cancellation.

 

Edward VII & Queen Victoria

 

He (Keegan) may have stumbled on an early British "lilac" but I gotta dig it out and look. too early to tell yet. I just seen it through the plastic. Thank you for the ID's

 

Possibly a QV?

 

It's possible? There is enough variety there for about anything to turn up! Great selection and I even get struck by some of that stuff...lol

 

Royal related stamps are really nice to collect.
I do have some but in modern times already.

 

I have a envelope with about 50 to hundred of those.

 

Most are like this View attachment 3151

 

They look Canadian. Am I mistaken?

 

Nope they are all British

 

Definately British - we are the only country to print our stamps without naming our country ( probably because we could not spell in 1840 )

Keeps all you "foreigners" guessing

See http://www.stamp-exchange.co.uk/king_george_vi.htm ( and others ) for reference

 

According to Wikipedia:

"The first stamp, the penny black, was put on sale on 1 May, to be valid as of 6 May 1840; two days later the two pence blue was introduced. Both show an engraving of the young Queen Victoria, with smooth, unperforated edges.

At the time, there was no reason to include the United Kingdom’s name on the stamp; the UK remains the only country not to identify itself by name on postal stamps,[31][32] as it simply uses the current monarch’s head as implicit identification"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postage_stamps