Christoph Gaertner’s usual phonebook-sized auction catalogue for their 21st-24th January 2013 sale managed to feature a few interesting Jubilee items among the 25’000+ (!!!) lots on offer. As is understandable, some are well overpriced, some are nicely priced, and it’s rare to find anything estimated low.
However my pick of their auction was lot 7804, pictured above. It is a souvenir card from the Royal Naval Exhibition on the 15th August 1891. Not only is it very attractive, but it is hard to find these cards uprated for postage abroad. I’m slightly regretting not being the winning bidder at €93 plus 20% commission.
As destination mail for the Jubilee issue goes, St. Pierre and Miquelon has to be up there with the rarest (it had a population of roughly 6’000 at the time…and it still does now!), and is so far the only one I have recorded. Although lot 7806 has some soiling and the indistinct arrival cds, I can’t help but feel that at only €60 it shouldn’t have gone unsold.
And just as a comparison, lot 7803 was a postcard sent to Algeria fetched €65 plus 20% commission. Although still pretty scarce as a destination (with it being a French colony, as St. Pierre et Miquelon, there was very little commercial mail coming from the UK), I have seen a few. Algeria’s population was roughly 4’000’000. Obviously it is helped by the its freshness and crisp arrival.
We start of this month with Bechuanaland Protectorate. This attractive example has the larger and scarcer “Protectorate” overprint (19mm wide). In used condition, it is catalogued by Stanley Gibbons at £425. It fetched a good price at £165.95.
This 1s green single franking is one of the more scarce (only the 1s green and carmine and 9d purple and blue are more so). This one is paying four times the UPU rate of 2 1/2d to France plus a 2d registration fee. It sold well for £91.59.
The 1887 Jubilee Issue 