A BIG STAMP FIND

Evening Star, Issue 19025, 21 August 1925, Page 3

A BIG STAMP FIND

DISCOVERY IN MAYFAIR. A new chapter in tho romance of stamp collecting is unfolded by Fred. J Melville in a recent issue 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 of this important haul present some entirely novel features. Picture tho young scion of a. noble house, captivated by tho newest fashion of his schooldays, the collecting of stamps in tho early sixties. He is an enterprising youth, and has ample means. All his rivals are intent on getting stamps from _ tho remote colonies, which they obtain by “ swapping,” and by the favor of merchants and' business houses with extensive foreign correspondence. This collector set about his task on different lines. Ho sent a £5 bank note or less to each of_ a number of colonial postmasters, asking to he supplied with stamps to the amount. This was in 1863 and 1861, and tho replies came duly to hand, most of them just formal letters acknowledging tho remittance, and detailing the amount of stamps enclosed and balance retained for cost of postage. Tho letters, enclosures, and all, were laid aside, tho 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 tho hoy’s letters, and, seeing some stomps, brought out tho packet for investigation. Neither she nor her husband knew anything of stamps, but they supposed these might lie of some value. They invited Mr H. R. Harmcr, the Bond street auctioneer, to see the lor. 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 will provide one of 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 Cl 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 the other two stamps have boon removed. It will stir the imagination of tho specialists in Ceylon to rolled wind a difference a few years might hare made boro, if tho 1857 stamp of llm same typo, but on blued paper, had boon sent, a stamp which is quoted at £25 a copy.

Tn return for a remittance of f-5 the, postmaster of Vancouver, British Columbia, sent a couple of sheets of I lie 2.1 d reddish-rose stamp of 1861, now a £3 stamp. One sheet of 210 is still intact, and there are US remaining on tho second sheet. A unique item is an almost complete sheet of tho Id orange-vermilion Queensland, of 1863, also worth £3 a stamp singly, but of exceptional inteicst in the sheet. The first eleven stamps from the top of tho sheet have gone, leaving a balance of 229. There are other remarkable part-sheets of Queensland, inclndiifg blocks of 106 and 16 of tho 2d blue, 4!) of the 3d brown, and 22 of the 6d yellow green. In all I counted 5M of these early Queensland, representing a cost of £3 10s Id to their original owner, hut valued ,todav in thousands,

Western Australia also figures in this find in a block of 19 of the 2d blue, clean cut perforation, of 1861. and a block of 80 of the Id lake of 1864. Another consignment came from Grenada, seven complete sheets of 120 each of the Id green of May, 18(12, aml_ a broken sheet of 96, The lonian Islands, which were ceded by Britain to Greece in May, 1864, wore also canvassed by this enterprising collector, and among his store several intact sheets and a number of broken sheets are preserved. Another packet consists of large blocks of the original stamps issued hv the postal adm mi stratum of the Counts of Thorn ami Taxis in Germany, before Prussia bought nut the last 'remnants of their postal monopoly, which had existed from ancient times. These arc iho chief items in a most surprising and valuable find. In all, of the stamps recovered after sixty years in the limbo of things forgotten, the total cost to the first purchaser.at face value was, under £2O: their value on tho stamp market to-day may ho estimated at approximately £IO,OOO, and their contribution to the solution of some of the knotty problems in which specialist!; arc interested will he considerable.