STAMP AUCTIONEER HAS WORLD-WIDE CLIENTELE

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27377, 16 June 1954, Page 14

STAMP AUCTIONEER HAS WORLD-WIDE CLIENTELE

“The Press" Special Service

AUCKLAND, June 15. The man who made the first miiliondollar stamp sale, who has sold stamps to most Qf the world’s rulers during the last half-century, and who disposed of Prince Farouk’s collection, is now in Auckland. He is Mr H. R. Harmer, founder of the world’s biggest stamp auctioneering firm and a man of whom the American magazine “Life” said recently that “he has been to philately what Henry Duveen was to art." Mr Harmer is at his favourite work

—travelling the world on stamp business. A spry, tiny 84-year-ola m?n, he has an overwhelming enthusiasm for stamps as collectors’ items, as much as for their predictable investment value. His private collecton—he specialises in forgeries and reprints—has been a frequent medal winner. Customers and collecting trends changed with the years, said Mr Harmer. Before the Second World War, he was accustomed to hobnobbing with European monarchs and Eastern potentates, selling them stamps that would be easily portable if their subjects had a change of heart. This prudent form of investment worked out nicely for King Carol of |Ri

imania, who took his collection into exile. But Farouk was not so thoughtful. As a result, Mr Harmer, who had originally arranged the sale of some of the choicest items in the collection to Farouk’s father, Fuad, was again called in to dispose of the former Egyptian King’s philatelic treasures.

“They included the finest collection of Egyptian stamps ever got together,” | said Mr Harmer. “I sola them to liis father—l can’t remember just when, but I think it was while he was on a | visit to England. Farouk got them when his father died, and then he left , them behind. “The Government sent for us to sell the stamps when Farouk’s possessions were sold. I think the Egyptian collection realised about £21,000, and that showed a fair average investment return of about four times the original purchase price.” Mr Harmer realised substantially more than 1,000,000 dollars for the famdus Arthur Hind collection, and he also raised 221,000 dollars for the collection of the late President Roosevelt —a collection that many people had dismissed as - “junk.” “There are booms and slumps in stamps like anything else,” said Mr Harmer. “But a lot of people collect today for the financial security they offer. They are the most portable property in the world. I could get you 100 single stamps worth an average of £5OO apiece, and you could pop them all in your waistcoat pocket.” But Mr Harmer still prefers the genuine collector to the disinterested investor—especially if the collector knows enough about the business to drive a keen bargain. Doctors make the best collectors, he thinks—‘‘because they have an eye for minutiae.” Lawyers come a close second in his estimation.