FORTUNES IN STAMPS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20152, 12 January 1929, Page 2 (Supplement)

FORTUNES IN STAMPS.

HOW MONEY IS MADE.

COLLECTORS AND TREASURES*

KINGS AND SCHOOLBOYS,

SOME HISTORIC ISSUES.

" What a fool to waste his money on postage stamps,'V one will Lear people say regarding philatelists from time to time. Collectors of these pieces of paper are generally classed with " bug-hunters" and the like as harmless lunatics, hut a study of the exhibits at the London Stamp Exhibition which the Lord Mayor opened recently would tell a different tale.

But to the general public very little is thought of the scientific side of phiktelv —the general question put to a stamp collector is: "What do you make out of it ? " Perhaps the best answer to that says a Fetfow of the Royal Philatelic Society in a newspaper article, is a consideration of the current market prices of stamps issued within recent years.

Malta for instance! Within the post-war years, the Maltese have bad a very bad habit of issuing new stamps on every possible occasion. In 1919 they issued a ten shilling stamp and without warning, printed another similar issue on different paper. That stamp is now worth £4O. But the stamp that took its place had scarcely a longer life, and now it is worth £ls. If one had invested £6 cn each of these issues he would have had a bigger percentage of profit than he could have got from any other investment. Mousy to Buy a Public Park. But stamp collectors have, of recent years, got a bit shy of issues that have been put forth by governments simply to get money out of their pockets, bo when the British Colony of St. Kitts-Nevis in the West Indies blatantly announced that they were issuing a tercentenary set of stamps for the purpose of getting enough money to buy a public park, the stamps were boycotted. Then came the news that the stamps had been withdrawn and that those which had not been sold had been burned. Immediately there was a rush both by American collectors and their rivals in Britain to corner the stamps cn the market, with the result that the ten shilling stamp of that issue, -which was selling a day previously for 12s 6d, jumped up to £8 and the £1 stamp went up to £l4. But perhaps the best investment was the three-halfpenny one, for which 3s 6d was asked. Another sensation came from Gibraltar. In 1924 an eight shilling stamp was issued —which nobody bought. In London it could be purchased lor a shilling above face value until 1926. For some reason, about that time the writer bought a copy for 8s 9d, and two days afterwards he sold it for. £4. He is sorry he did, for the market price is now £lO. In St. Helena about a year ago someone had a brain-wave. There had been on sale in the post offices a stamp of the face value o:E 15s, and nobody had seemed to find any use for it. -Five years it had been hanging about waiting for purchasers and they were not forthcoming. " What's the use'of it? " asked someone, and not receiving an answer had it withdrawn. One could get £5 for a, copy to-d3y. Good Luck and Good Judgment.

The writer proceeds:—" But there is as much good judgment as luck _i»-these deals. For instance, I once saw a Block of four stamps in a collection offered in auction. There were four thousand stamps in the lot; I wanted just that one piece. I reckoned that one of three dealers would buy the lot and when I called on the third of them I found I was right. I bought the four stamps for five shillings—all honest and above board—and then I crossed the road and sold them again—still honest and above board—for £4. Three pounds fifteen profit in five minutes wasn't had going—and all because I noticed the overprint on one of the stamps was one millimetre shorter than that on the others."

In most cases, however, it is the good luck that counts. There was the schoolboy in Demerara. British Guiana, who found a funny-looking stamp printed on magneta-coloured paper. He had heard of these stamps before, but no one had ever seen a magneta one. " Obviously a forgery " said everyone he' consulted, so lie was glad to get rid of it for six shillings. Years passed until, in April 1922, a Bradford man named Arthur Hind, who had become a millionaire in America, bought the self-same piece of paper for the unprecedented price of £7343. It is the only specimen in captivity! Even more interesting is the story of the only other unique stamp known. It is the one mark stamp of Togoland, overprinted by the French. When the Germans evacuated that colony they hid their stamps in some dry wells—but were noticed, and when the Allie:,; arrived, the hiding place was revealed. The stamps were divided between the French and the English—and the French only overprinted ono one-mark stamp. If it were offered for sale to-day it would fetch £3OOO or £4OOO. King George's Treasure. Of course, when one talks about rare stamps, the majority of people think of Post Office Mauritius (the Penny lied and tho Twopenny Blue). There are something like 23 or 24 specimens of these known. One of each is o\vned_by King George. His Twopenny has a wonderful history. A schoolboy took up stamp collecting in tho early days and a friend gave him a bluo stamp. He put it in his book —and soon got fed up with collecting. In 1903 he showed his old collection to a friend—who spotted the Twopenny Blue j it Mas put up for auction and the King broke all records by paving £1450 for it—and it was a wonderful investment. He could get at least twice as much for it to-day. But more wonderful was tlie Bordeaux boy who found an envelope with a Penny and a Twopenny used together on it. His father knew nothing about stamps so he sent it to a dealer in Paris —3nd almost fainted when he received £I6OO for tho piece. Tho dealer mado a couplo of hundred on the resale and when the purchaser died. Mr. Hind bought the envelope for £II,OOO. These things do not happen very often —but when they do they generally coma with a bump. There was a paper stock company in Philadelphia which bought a mass of old papers from a bank for pulping. Fortunately they examined them before consigning them to their fate—and they found among the " rubbish " postage stamps to the auction value of £20,000. A Stamp in a Church Plate. More wonderful is the tale of some fourcent British Guiana stamps of 1850. An old negro woman had no money to give to her church, and so she put a stamp m tho plate. The archdeacon noticed its worth, aud thought that there might still be others of the same kind floating round. Ho found a pair and sold them for £250 for the funds of the church, 10-dav £SOOO would not buy them.

So it goes on—years ago a young man used to send five or ten pounds to various Colonial postmasters in payment for sheets of stamps. Sixty years passed—and the granddaughter of that man was searching in an attic of her Mayfair home. She found several sheets of stamps —and they were sold four years ago -for £5525 os. They cost less than £3O. If one has any old stamps in the attic they might be "worth while showing them to a philatelic friend, or if he has noc anv of that genus, there are plentv or Philatelic Societies where the members will be glad to give an opinion on ms find! -