FORTUNES IN STAMPS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3018, 17 January 1912, Page 100

FORTUNES IN STAMPS.

(By John D. L*ckie.) The number of stamp collectors appears to increase from year to year, and everything seems to point to the fact that we are on the verge of a regular ’boom” in the pursuit of this hobby. The fact that the present King is an ardent stamp collector i« of itself sufficient to- set the fashion ; besides, the advent of a new King means an issue of new stamps bearing his effigy, not only for the United Kingdom, but for the numerous British colonies,, and this is generally found to be a fresh incentive to the stamp collector. ,

The stamps most prized by collectors are the first issue of Mauritius, a penny and twopence, of 1847. It is difficult to affix a definite value to these stamps, but today they are probably worth £ISOO to £2OOO each, though they are not the scarcest stamps known. It is not many years since they could have been obtained for £2O each, and by many persons that price was thought at the time to be ridiculously high. This will give some idea of how scarce stamps increase in value. In the year 1904 a specimen of the twopenny blue Mauritius of 1847 was put up for auction. It was by no means perfect, for, though it was unused, the gum was wanting, which is reckoned a defect by collectoi's. Nevertheless it was sold for £1450, the actual purchaser being the Prince of Wales, now King of England. Both the penny and twopenny Mauritius were contained in the collection of stamps belonging to the late Sir William Avery, of the Birmingham Weighingmachine Making Company. His collection was sold by his executors for £24,500. Compiled throughout a long life, from the age, of eight, it is considered to be the largest collection of postage stamps in the world next to that contained in the British Museum. It comprises 100,000 stamps, and represents almost completely the postal systems of every country in the world. The tendency of stamp collectors nowadays is to specialise—that is ; to confine their attention to the postal issues of only a few countries, of even of only one. Fci exrmple, many c Hectors confine them. selves entirely to the stamps of Great Britain and the British colonies. Complete collections of any single country are much sought after. Recently, in Paris, a collection comprising only Swiss stamps was sold for approximately £BOOO by M. Paul Mirabaud, the millionaire banker; but in the Avery collection there are several unique pieces which are absent from the Mirabaud one. IJnused copies of the double Geneva stamp fetch £75 each. The £24,500 for the Avery collection is By no means a record. The following are the prices recently realised at sales of notable stamp collections: — Ayre collection, £45,000 ; Mann collection, £20,000 ; Paul collection, £11,400 ; Thompson collection, £7OOO. Among other rarities a blue two-cent missionary stamp of Hawaii, dating from 1851, is now worth at least £IOOO. The twelve pence black (1851) of Canada is valued at £IOO. This stamp was also in the Avery collection, as was the four cents on blue, paper of British Guiana, valued at £2OO. Even comparatively common stamps sometimes increase greatly in value. We remember the time when a triangular Cape of Good Hope could be bought for a halfpenny. The cheapest three-cornered Cane costs to-day about half a crown, while some of the rarer varieties run up to £BS.

The two cents rose (1851) of British Guiana ie another philatelic gem. A pair of those were sold for £4OO each. The collector who possesses a complete series of British Guiana is a rich man, for there are many stamps of great price among the numerous issues of the colony. The same price as that last mentioned (£400) was paid for a fourpennv blue of Western Australia (first issue). The high price was solely due to the fact that the centre had been" accidentally inverted ; the ordinary stamp without this error of impression is only worth 12s 6d. The five cents brown (I 860) of Now Brunswick is worth about £3O in the unused state : at least that is the price put on it in the catalogue of a leading stamp dealer, although it is very doubtful if it was ever issued for postal use. This stamp, like many others, _ has a history that is worth relating. It is known as the "Oonnell" stamp, from the Colonial Post-master-general of that name, whose effigy it bears. About the end of 1859, when the currency of the colony was changed fiom pence to cents, the Postmastergeneral was ordered by the Government to print new etamps with the altered values. The new etamps were to be of

the value of one, five, ten, and 12 cents. No special instructions were given about colour or design, and Connell took the ill-advised course of embellishing the five cent, stamp with his own portrait. The stamps were to have been issued for sale on May 1, 1860; but on the Government receiving notice at the last moment that one of the stamps bore the portrait of the Postmaster-general, that official was instructed to delay the issue, and afterwards he was ordered to withdraw the stamps which bore his effigy and to replace them by a different design with the portrait of the Queen. Connell considered himself aggrieved by this resolution, and sent in his resignation, which was accepted. Although an order was given for the destruction of the Connell stamps, some of them escaped, and these are much prized by collectors. As they are known in the used state, it is presumed that some were actually used for postage ; used specimens are still more valuable than the unused, being worth as much as £75. It has already been mentioned (in the case of the fourpenny blue of' Western Australia) that an error of impression may greatly increase the value of a stamp ; the value in such a case depends mainly on the scarcity of such misprint or error. The error may be produced in various ways. Some of the earliest stamps were printed in black on coloured paper, different colours being used to represent the various values. This is the case with the first stamps issued by the Grand Duchy of Baden. The six kreuzer value is printed in black on green paper and the nine kreuzer in black on rose. By a printer's error, probably caused by the resemblance of the inverted nine to a six, some of the nine kreuzer stamps were printed on green paper. When the first specimen of a nine kreuzer black on green stamp was shown to a prominent dealer he pronounced it to be a "fake"; but two specimens of the same stamp were afterwards produced on the original envelopes, in the state in which they had passed through the post, which left no doubt of the genuineness of the error. Since then no other specimens of this error have been found, and the three referred to are believed to be the only ones in existence. One of the envelopes with the stamp affixed was sold for £IOO to a well-known collector.

Perhaps the commonest of all errors are those of surcharge ; at present 6tamps with an inverted or defective surcharge are all the rage among collectors. Among the stamps issued by the German colony of Kiautschou is one which is surcharged "5 Pf." On a few of the stamps, owing to a misprint, the surcharge appears "5fP." The original or nostal value of this stamp is only a halfpenny. A ship captain addressed from Kiautschou to his son in Europe an envelope to which one of these rarities was affixed. His son was a collector, and did not throw the envelope into the waste-paper basket, as doubtless many others did, in ignorance of the value of the treasure. Only about 10 specimens of this error are known, and they are valued at £75 each.

Owing to the ease with which errors of this kind can be imitated, it might be imagined that the manufacture of forged errors would be easy, but such forgeries can generally be detected by experts by microscopic tests. Besides, where only a few specimens of a certain stamp or error are known to exist, they can easily be indentified and their genuineness certified, specially if they are affixed to the original envelope with clearly defined post-marks. The writer of this article, when in Paraguay, acquired a small block of the stamps of that country, five cents surcharged on two cents vermilion, the surcharge being accidentally inverted. For these he only paid face-value (less than a farthing each), but they are now valued at £1 each in the catalogue of a leading dealer. Even such a small matter as the accidental omission of a. period or a comma may greatly increase the value of a stamp, if it is a genuine error and scarce. Frequently such an error will appear only once in each entire sheet of stamps. Minor errors of this kind are much sought after by advanced collectors. A recent publication (Lehrbuch der Briefmarkenkunde, Leipzig) gives a list of the hundred scarcest stamps in the -world. Of these it may be sufficient to mention the first 10, in order of rarity : British Guiana (1856), one cent black on magenta; do (1851), two cents rose; Hawaii (1851), two cents blue ; Mauritius (1847), Post Office, twopenny blue ; do (1847), do, penny red; Roumania (Moldavia, 1858), eighty-one para blue on bluish paper; British Guiana (1856), four cents black on blue ; Hawaii (1851), 13 cents Tilue ; do (1851), five cents blue; Canada (1851), twelve pence black. It will be noticed that the so-called "Post Office" Mauritius do not head the list. Although the dearest, they are not the scarcest stamps known ; 13 of the penny and 11 of the twopenny are known to exist, while the known number of some other stamps is still smaller. The special interest which attaches to the "Post Office" Mauritius is perhaps due to the fact that they were among the first stamps to be issued. It may be noticed that of the foregoing 10 stamps, six belong to British colonies ; nor is this classification due to anv partiality on the part of British collectors, as the list is taken _jrom a German publication.—Chambers's Journal.