STAMP AUCTION SALES.

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 2544, 29 November 1924, Page 9

STAMP AUCTION SALES.

STARTED IX 1888 BY THOMAS

BULL.

The oldest of the British 'Stamp auctioneering firms, Messrs Walter Bull and Co., London, ha s disposed of the philatelic department of its business writes Fred. J. Melville ih the Daily

| Telegraph. The Bulls may be regard. ed as the originators of stamp auci lions in London, for although a stamp collection was sold at Sotheby’s in 1872, regular stamp sales were not started until 1888. On November 24, ISSB, Mr. Thomas Bull, then of the firm of Ve'ntom, Bull, and Cooper, held his first stamp sale, at the in-, ‘Nance of the late Mr. Douglas Garth, honorary secretary <of the Philatelic iSocicty, who suggested that in establishing the system of sale by auction (he effect would be to establish a market price for the more uncommon stamps,, and to facilitate the public distribution of large collections which might come on the market. At that first sale Mr. Bull disposed of 310 lots for £405 55., and the highest price obtained far a single stamp was £ls, for b, slightly mended copy of the Id. blue Capo “woodblock" error. A collection of 1000 varieties, which includ. ed such rarities as the id. Tornese Naples Gross, sets of Oldenburg, Swiss Cantonals, imperforate Ceylons, Newfoundland vermilion Issue, a circular British 'fcluiana, a set of blue paper New Zealand's, and a Is. “pelure” of the same colony, Sydney Views, fine early Phillippines, and “old Cabul," brought . £4O, probably £4OOO would not buy an equal lot to-day. Mr. Thomas Bull looked upon that sale as promising an afternoon’s amusement, but the results were so satisfactory that he repeated the experiment, and the sales have been held regularly ever since. Mr. Walter Bull, who has long been regarded as the doyen of stamp auctioneers, retires full of years and honours, and Mr. E. G. Harmer will carry on the stamp sales which have a record of 36 years.