SOME RARE STAMPS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23081, 6 January 1937, Page 5

SOME RARE STAMPS

FORTUNES IN PAPER ERRORS AND THE OUTCOME Most of the world’s rare stamps which are sold come up for sale at one-or other of the great London stamp auctions, and attract attention throughout the country and overseas (says a writer in the Daily Express). During the last few years the London stamp auctioneers have turned over an average of well over £250,000 annually. The greatest collection ever sold by a London auctioneer was that owned by the late Arthur Hind. It took 14 months to dispose of it. The United States portion was sold in America for over £40,000. The rest of the stamps were sold by auction at Harmer’s, in Bond street, and brought the total to £172,500. Arthur Hind, a wealthy plush manufacturer living at Utica, New York, had spared neither money nor trouble in getting together what was one of the finest collections ever formed. In particular, his collection of Mauritius stamps was unequalled. In one afternoon in the early summer of 1934 these rare Mauritius stamps were disposed of in a few hours for no less than £33,000 —a London auction room record.

Mo,re than a year afterwards the rarest stamp in the world—the one cent British Guiana —also came up for sale in London. The stamp had previously been in Arthur Hind’s collection, but he had left it to his wife, and on his death she took possession of it. During his lifetime Hind had many times sent the stamp to exhibitions, and it had crossed the Atlantic on several occasions in an ordinary registered letter. Before thg stamp came up for auction it had been insured at Lloyd’s for £IO.OOO. KEPT IN A BANK A London stamp dealer bid £7500, but this did not reach the reserve price, "and the stamp was .withdrawn. This stamp, still looked upon as the rarest in the world, is now in thq vaults of a New York bank, and there seems little prospect of it again emerging until some collector can be found willing to put down a small fortune for the honour of possessing this unique piece of paper. The most valuable collection ever sold was that formed by Count von Ferrary. The count, an eccentric gentleman living in Paris, had spent a lifetime getting the collection together, but during the war the French Government seized his collection, as they considered it enemy property, and after the. armistice the collection was sold by auction in Paris. Collectors attended the sale from all over the world, and over £400,000 was realised. Another London auction which attracted a good deal of attention at the time was the famous “ Mayfair Find.” More than 70 years ago a young man living in Mayfair thought he would like to take up the new hobby of collecting stamps, and decided that the best way to obtain specimens would be to write direct to postmasters abroad. In his letters he enclosed a £5 or £lO note requesting that stamps should be sent him by the next mail. In all he spent about £IOO. Communication was not so rapid as it is to-day. and by the time the stamps, came'to hand he had tired of stampcollecting, and the sheets of stamps* untouched, were put in the attic. Years later, when the attic was being turned out, these stamps were discovered and taken to one of tine big London auctioneers. The saLe of these stamps caused quite a stir, particularly among collectors. Stamps which up to that time had only been known in small blocks were available in complete sheets.’ POSTMASTER’S APOLOGY One postmaster, writing from Western Australia, had sent some 2d stamps printed in mauve. He apologised for having charged 6d each for them, but stated thah it

was tbe price which he had been charged. , Little did he know that years later lihe stamps printed in the coirect colour would be worth only a shilling or two, but that those in the wjrong colour would be worth more than £SO each. Altogether the stamps brought a lucky descendant off one of the earliest collectors more than £ 5000.

At' the beginning of this century a nlumber of early British stamps were found whilst alterations were being made to the Dublin General Post Office. Behind some shelves there was a disused cupboard containt ig a number of sheets of early stamps. In all there werd over 500 of them. They eventually passed into the collection of the late Lord Crawford. ’’’ A number of Post Office Mauritius stamps worth thousands of pounds each were originally discovered by Mme. Borchard, the wife of a Bordeaux merchant, who extoacted them from among some old correspondence. Mme. Bofchard, herself a stamp collector, could not find spaces for these stamps in her album, and so she exchanged two with another collector for a pair of comparatively valueless specimen^. These two Mauritius stamps, like mainy other varieties, eventually foiind their way into the Ferrary coll ection, and when sold after the warr realised over £2OOO. Altogether, Mme. Borchard, it is said, fotind no fewer than 14 of these Mauritius stamps. GREAT RARITIES

The early Hawaiian stamps were a curious design, and were set up, as were so many of the early stamps, ia ordinary printer’s type and pointed in the local newspaper office. They were little used, and w«ere printed on exceedingly brittle paper, which meant that they were easily damaged or destroyed. Now tihey are among the greatest rarities know to collectors, and a complete set, used and unused, would cost over £15,000.

The story is told of a visitor to Hawaii who, while passing through an old building in Honolulu, discovered beneath the whitewash on the wall an old newspaper wrapper on which was stuck two of the rare two-cent stamps of this issue, now catalogued at £4500 each. One of the rarest European stamps issued by Sweden in 1855, •printed in yellow instead of green, was discovered by a schoolboy in 1886. The schoolboy was a keen ■collector, and he had asked his grandmother if he might look through her old correspondence. He sold this rarity to a dealer for a few shillings. Actually, the dealer was not sure that it was genuine, as he had not previously seen another like it. Eventually, the stamp, after passing from hand to hand, was sold by auction for over £7OO. “A discovery that wasn’t” occurred in 1869, when a postmaster in a small American town received among his supply of stamps one sheet of the 15-cents value with the centre inverted. To-day this stamp isTisted at £2OOO. Actually, out of a complete sheet of 100 of these stamps, the postmaster sold only one to a stamp collector! And the rest he returned to the head post office with a note to the effect that they were unsaleable!