“CAN YOU SELL MY STAMPS?”

Putaruru Press, Volume XXI, Issue 1235, 19 June 1947, Page 2

“CAN YOU SELL MY STAMPS?”

AUCTIONEER'S STARTLING REPLY A well-known titled woman in London who will not reveal her name is trying to recover from her astonishment, states the Sunday Express. On May 31 she sent a big cardboard box to a London firm of stamp auctioneers- Two men carried it. It contained many stamps which had belonged to her husband. The men asked, on her instructions: ‘‘Are these worth offering for auction V ” Mr. J- Webb, manager of Harrner the auctioneers, promised to look them through. He did so. Then he reported to his chief. Mr. Guy Harrner immediately telephoned the owner : “ Nine of the stamps you sent us are worth £4OOO or £SOOO possibly more. I offer you an advance of £IOOO now.” Mr- Webb liar} found among the stamps a folded strip, badly creased, of nine unused 10s stamps of King Edward VII. overprinted “I,R. Official”—one of the rarest of British stamps. Mr. Harrner, who has a photograph of one similar stamp the only one that his firm has ever sold said: “ The one we sold fetched £950. “ The woman’s stamps are badly creased and' are without gum. Undoubtedly they will fetch four figures at the start of the autumn season when they are put up for auction. “ The world’s rarest stamp fetched between £7OOO and £BOOO. “Experts have found only 14 of tbe 10s I.R. stamps, and the nine represent by far the biggest block known to-day.” A block of four of these stamps is believed to be in the King's collection.