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I found this stamp in a collection I recently purchased. At first glance I thought it was Victorian but on looking closer I saw the profile was of our current queen and the cancellation oval was dated 1970.

It appears to have been stamped at an embassy, presumably British, as there is no name. There is nothing mentioned in any of my Gibbons catalogues and I cannot find anything on the internet. Can anyone enlighten me please.

Am I correct in thinking the bottom line of the cancel could be Algiers?

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FORESTS OLD, PASTURES NEW
(An expert is one who knows more and more, about less and less)

I'm sure these would be listed in Barefoot (British catalogue of world revenues).

They were applied on pages of passports, or on documents handled by an embassy/consulate to show payment of fees, just as any other type of revenue stamp (stock transfer, court fee, etc.). If you applied for a visa, they'd rubber-stamp the visa in your passport, and stick some stamps on the page as well to show the application fee was paid. Similarly to documents to show payment of ie. notarization fee.

These go back to, IIRC, George V era. All in the same vertical format and design; the Kings issues were in green instead of red though.

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Collecting Mongolia; Thailand; Indo-China; Mourning Covers; OHMS.
My online 'store': http://stampsfromaethelwulf.blogspot.com/

First up on google, searching for 'british revenue stamps' - http://www.useless.connectfree.co.uk/revenue/revenue.htm

You might also like to see these which include Q Victoria 'Consular Service', which will be like the Diplomatic. Most of these were printed at Her/His Majesty's Stationery Office at Harrow, certainly the post-war ones.

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Ian Billings - Norvic Philatelics GB stamps info: http://www.norphil.co.uk - also /catalog for our ecommerce site, blog.norphil.co.uk, shop.norphil.co.uk and Ian_norvic on twitter

Thank you Norvic for pointing me in the right direction. It is clear now that this was a revenue stamp issued in 1870 and the datestamped had clearly been wrongly set to 1970. The head, although looking remarkably like Queen Elizabeth II is indeed Queen Victoria. Do people collect these stamps and do they have any value? I will keep this one as a curiosity but it is always worth knowing if there are others interested in these stamps.

I think you misunderstood. The image you showed does indeed show Queen Elizabeth II and the stamp is correctly cancelled 1970. These have been around for many many years - I even saw them being printed in the 1970s. I don't know what the diplomatic service uses now - probably something entirely different.

And people do collect them, intensely - http://www.revenuesociety.org.uk/

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Ian Billings - Norvic Philatelics GB stamps info: http://www.norphil.co.uk - also /catalog for our ecommerce site, blog.norphil.co.uk, shop.norphil.co.uk and Ian_norvic on twitter

I listed a few of them (above) in a general lot here for $A45 and no bites, so they are not scarce - - that much is for sure!

I imagined they'd be pretty seldom seen.

http://www.stampboards.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=13545

To be fair these aren't all revenues and there may be too many 'others' for anybody to buy.

Line 5 has a USPOD seal, two Swiss Telegraph stamps and a Hungarian (possibly postage) stamp.
Line 6 has a Portuguese Newspaper stamps, two duff local post remainders, and a Wurrtemburg Postal Stationery cut-out (apparently)

The others are nice, though, if you collect them.

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Ian Billings - Norvic Philatelics GB stamps info: http://www.norphil.co.uk - also /catalog for our ecommerce site, blog.norphil.co.uk, shop.norphil.co.uk and Ian_norvic on twitter

I love those weirdo misconnected things, often found on the back pages of old albums.

Oh me too! That's where you can find some really interesting postage stamps that other dealer's don't know about because of their specialities.

KIP

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Ian Billings - Norvic Philatelics GB stamps info: http://www.norphil.co.uk - also /catalog for our ecommerce site, blog.norphil.co.uk, shop.norphil.co.uk and Ian_norvic on twitter