"Fantastic."

"An excellent analysis, nicely honed and quite informative as well."

"Jon, I checked with your handwritten letter of Staunton. The latter signatures are definitely his. So, the speculation was indeed too far fetched!"

"The latter signatures look very Stauntonesque... I'm not a handwriting expert, but my guess would be that Howard was still signing them."

"I wonder if the slight change in handwriting is because a surrogate copied Staunton's signature as the great man was too busy for this mundane work? Far-fetched?"

"The larger loop appears by set No. 102. This fact suggests that Staunton signed the first 100 labels in one session maybe because Jaques had made a stock of 100 sets to sell in September 1849. The next labels might then have been signed by Staunton after the sets proved a roaring success."

"Jaques must surely have made a large batch of sets for their launch in 1849. So it is likely that these early sets were sold within weeks of each other, probably selling at an average of 50/month for the wood ones and much fewer for ivory."

"No-one is blocked from leaving comments here. But, unfortunately, there is a hitch in the system that you have to be a Google+ member to leave comments on a Google+ site. Sorry, but I can't change Google."

"The pre102 has just the early crown stamp. There is some surface dirt."

"Holding your piece and juggling! There's a thought. I look forward to your findings - I tell myself I can see the inward/downward sweep of the top line of the 'other' crown but am not sure."

"Keith, I'll look carefully tonight. My children bought me a digital microscope for my birthday - it is great for these photos. Though I have to juggle holding the piece and microscope in one hand, keeping it in focus as I click the mouse with the other hand."

"Looking back at these, I've just noticed - on the 'pre-102' image there appears to be a double-stamp imprint: the underlying, less effective, one seems to be of the other stamp design? What do you think?"

"I should have said: an excellent series, Alan - I've always had problems taking direct photos of stamps - enlargements blur things and the 'paint' obscures the actual imprint: this really does show up the true nature of the stamps better than any I've seen."

"Keith, I am just recording photos that will build up a picture of evidence. It seems so far that all the "stamps" are individual. Alan"

"No apparent ',' here either - how important a sgnifier do you think it, especially if the 'stamps' are each hand-made/engrved ?"