A BIG STAMP FIND

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 34, 8 August 1925, Page 16

A BIG STAMP FIND

DISCOVERY IN MAYFAIR.*

A new chapter in the romance of itamp collecting i» unfolded by Fred. J. Melville in a t recent iasue of the "Daily Telegraph." A treasure store of unsuspected rarities, has been , discovered in the heart of Mayfair. London has had no prominent share in the big stamp finds of the past, and the circumstances ol this important haul present some entirely novel features. Picture the, young scion of a noble house, 'captivated' by the newest fashion of his schooldays, the'col-' lecting of stamps in the early 'sixties. He is an enterprising youth, and has ample means.. All his rivals 'are intent on gef> ting stamps from the remote colonies, whicji they obtain by "swapping," and by the favour of merchants and business houses with extensive foreign correspondence.

This collector iet about hia task on different lines. He tent a £5 bank note or lesa to each of a number of colonial postmasters, asking to be supplied with stamps to the amount. This was in 1863 and 1864, and the replies came duly to hand, most of them just formal letters acknowledging the remittance, and detailing the amounts of stamps enclosed and balance retained for cost of jpostyge. The letters, enclosures, and all, were laid aside, the collector having embarked on a military career, and probably abandoned his schoolboy hobby. Sixty-one years elapse. A titled lady, searching for a bundle of papers in an attic of the family's town mansion, has by chance disturbed the packet of the boy's letters, and, seeing some stamps, brought out the packet for investigation. Neither she nor her husband knew anything of stamps, but they supposed these might be of some value. They invited Mr. H. R. Harmer, the Sand street auctioneer, to see the lot, and eventually placed them in his hands for sale by auction. I have seen them all, and the old correspondence relating to them, and have no doubt they wfll provide one ot the sensations of the auction-room next season. " '

A remittance of 10s sent to Ceylon brought two sheets (each of 120) of the id lilac stamp of 1858, on white glazed paper, a stamp which fetches £4 a copy, and of which probably no living collector had ever seen a full sheet until now. One of the sheets'is still intact; from th e other two stamps have been removed. It will stir the imagination of the specialist* in Ceylons to reflect what a difference a few years might have made here, if th» 1857 stamp of the same type, but'on blued paper, had been sent, a stamp which is quoted at £25 a copy. In return for a remittance of £5 the postmaster of Vancouver, British Columbia, sent a couple, of sheets of the 2Ja reddish-rose stamp of 1861, now a £3 stamp. One sheet of 240 is still intact, and there are 118 remaining on the second sheet.

A unique item is an almost complete sheet of the Id orange-vermilion Queensland) ot. 1863, also worth £3 a stamp singly, but of exceptional interest in the sheet. The first eleven stamps from tin; top of the sheet have gone, leaving a balance of 229. There are other remarkable part-sheets of Queensland, including blocks of 106 and 16 of the 2d blue, 4i) .of the 3d brown, and 22 of the 6d yellowgreen. In all I counted 514 of these early Queensland*,' _representing- a cost of £3 10s 4d to their original purchaser, but valued to-day in thousands. Western Australia also figures in this find in a block of 49 of the 2d blue, clean cut perforation, of 1861, and a block or 80 of the Id lake of 1864. Another consignment came from Grenada, seven complete, sheets of 120 each of the Id green of rMay,_ 1862, and a broken sheet of 96. The lonian Islands, which were ceded by Britain to Greece ill Hay, 1864, were also canvassed by this enterprising collector, and among his store several intact sheets and a number of broken sheets are pro' served. Another packet consists of large blocks of the original stamps issued by the postal administration'of the Count's of Thurn and Taxis in Germany, before Prussia bought out the last remnants of their postal monopoly, which had existed from ancient times.

These are the chief items in a most surprising and valuable find. In all, of the stamps l'ecovered after 60 years in the limbo of things forgotten, the total cost to tho first purchaser at face value was under £20: their value on the stamp market 10-day may be estimated at approximately £10,000, and their contribution to tho. solution of some of the knotty problems in which specialists arc interested will be considerables