SALES OF STAMPS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19218, 8 July 1924, Page 4

SALES OF STAMPS.

Another £23.838 wns obtained for the ninth portion of the Ferrary collection of stamps sold in Paris last April (writes Fred V. Melville, in tho Daily Tele-graph), bringing the to'a.l to £504.340. Another portion will lie sold in June, and as there is still a large surplus the sales are not likely to 'bo concluded before 1926. Prices in April rilled as high as at the previous sales—indeed, in some respects higher —and bidders were not deterred 'by the rise of (he franc or by the increased Government tax, now 19g instead of per cent. With tax. the French Government receives 1,692,524 francs for the three days’ sale, making 17,440,167 francs for the collection to date. Early in the sale a record price was scored for a rare Niger Coast provisional, (ho 20s on Is vermilion surcharge, of which but two copies are known. It brought 20,000 francs, or, with tax, £336. an astonishing price for a somewhat exotic rarity. The numerous rare provisional stamps of the Niger Coast, long neglected by collectors, have been arousing keen competition in recent years. A buyer who consulted me as to what to bid for this stamp lias, I fear, been disappointed ; be was told ho would have to go to £250 for it, which is more than it or any of its kindred stamps had fetched even at Ferrary sales. Another buyer, however, has scored the biggest bargain yet obtained at any rate of these sales. Being" an official sale by the French Government, all the stamps are sold without guarantee of any land, but in describing one item (he official expert expressly stales “non gnranli.” Apparently his doubts were shared by most of the company, for the stamp, worth upwards of £260, was knocked down for less than £2 to our most experienced dealer in old English stamps—and he know what he was buying! Among the other rare English stamps the prices ruled higher than London auction prices in most case.s. An unused block of 18 of our first Id black stamp (1840) fetched £136. The exceptional block of six Id rodbrown stamps, with Archer’s experimental roide.tting. brought £B4. and will probably yield an interesting addition io our knowledge of Archer’s trials of this method of separating stamps. The Id bhick stamp, with the Royal initials ’ in (.he lop corners, was prepared in 1849 for use on official correspondence, but. the stamp was never brought into use for, that propose. A verv few may have been used accidentally. and passed" in the nest, owine to (tie close similarity of tho “\ .K. 1 to the ordinary Id blade stamp. Ferrary had (he “V.'R,” used on a loiter posted on .liuio 10, 1840, and this fine item sold for £220. The top urice for an English stamp was for the extremely rave 10s blue King Edward stamp, overnrinted “Lit. Official, which brought £445 (a similar copy sold for £3OO in London in 1921). Tho £1 ‘T.R. Official” of tho same issue realised £277. In each case the figures realised represent about double tho valuations for those stamps in (he standard English catalogue, which prices tho 10s at £2OO and 1 dm at £I4A