Monthly Archives: November 2013

Brasiliana 2013

Brasiliana-2013I was fortunate enough to travel with work to Brasiliana 2013, the international stamp exhibition in Rio de Janeiro. Although the show was a bit of disaster, in my free time (and there was a lot of it because there were so few visitors), I actually managed to find some nice Jubilee items in the exhibits.

 

Two exhibits Mafeking coverlisted immediately caught my eye. The first I headed for was “The Siege of Mafeking” by Antonio Cucchiani. The collection featured several rare covers with Jubilee frankings as well as an example of the double overprint on the 4d. The collection was awarded a Vermeil medal.

British Levant 2s6d on coverAnd the other was “The British Postal Service in the Levant, 1857-1923” by Alexios Papadopoulos. Jubilee items of note included three GB 1s green on a parcel label, one of only 3 known covers with the single ring cds of Salonica and the cover pictured adjacent which is one of only 3 recorded with the 12pi on 2s6d. Interestingly the collection did not contain a QV 4pi on 10d on cover. The collection was awarded a Large Vermeil.

2013-11-19 13.03.41Individual items of note included this 1/2d postal stationery card uprated with a 1/2d vermilion sent to Argentina and forwarded on arrival with an Argentinian stamp, which I just happened to spot in a collection of Argentinian postal history.

2013-11-20 15.42.07And this cover belonged to an exhibition entitled “Swedish Militaries & Volunteers in war, Campaigns or in active service abroad 1582-1905”. Certainly not an exhibition I would expect to find a Jubilee cover, but in fact this envelope was sent to a Swede attached to the 5th Dragoons in the British Field Army in South Africa, and had a long journey to try and find its addressee!

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You Wait Ages For A Bus…

Jubilee Zemstvo Mixed Franking…and then four come along at once!! The cover shown is a rare mixed franking of a 1/2d vermilion and a Russian Zemstvo 1k violet imperf from Bogorodsk to pay the delivery or printed matter from the UK to Moscow, and then from Moscow to its final destination in the Bogorodsk distrcit. This is not the first Zemstvo and Jubilee combination cover I have seen. However the other two covers I spotted featured different Bogorodsk stamps. This brief tale begins in September, when David Feldman sold a near identical cover to this for €900. It continued yesterday in the USA, when Cherrystone sold another two near identical covers for $1’500 each! And now Cavendish have got in on the act, and are offering the example pictured with an estimate of £300 as part of the Seymour collection of newspaper wrappers in their December auction. It’s stated in the description that, aside from being one of Seymour’s favourite covers, that there are only three such covers known… So either the entire world supply has appeared on the market in the space of three months, or there are a few more than first thought. Either way, it’s still a very rare franking!

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October 2013 Retails Items of the Month

Top 3 Items of the Month

79034_grandeWe start off this months retail highlights with a very important reference for every Jubilee collector. The Ernest Good Collection auction catalogue by Phillips on 3rd November 1988 is still one of the best collections of the Jubilee issue ever formed. Sold by Bill Barrell for £12.50.

13348520684b1e22ec08f83Next up is the cover which, as they say in the business, is full of character! This is normally the code word for scruffy, and it’s hard to deny it in this case, but look beyond that and you’ll find an extremely interesting cover. Sent to New Zealand, it was simply addressed to “J. M. Rainbow, Post Office, New Zealand”! What is equally amazing is that the New Zealand still tried their best to deliver it. With transit markings from Christchurch, Dunedin, Wellington, Invercargill and Timaru. Yours for £155 from Samwells.

1897 Prince of Wales Hosptial Fund coverAnd to finish with we have a scarce usage of the 1897 1s Prince Wales Hospital Fund label on cover with two 1/2d vermilions. For sale by Andrew Lajer for £165.

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October 2013 Ebay Report

Top 5 Items of the Month

69.60Just covers for you this month. And we kick off with my biggest miss of the month. Not only is it a scarce cover sent by the Continental Night Mail service, but it is also the only example of a Jubilee cover going to Corsica that I ever seen!! It sold for a poultry £69.60. Doh!

8.95Although completely philatelic, since I hadn’t seen one before I thought it was of note to point out this item. The envelope is franked with a 1 1/2d and 2 1/2d Jubilee tied by the Guildhall Jubilee cancel, which isn’t too unusual. However this cancel is actually from the B.P.S Exhibition held at the Guildhall London 1966! Obviously didn’t go through the post but an interesting curio nevertheless. It sold for £8.95.

10.56Next up is this highly attractive printed cover sent by the Sun Fire Office as a reminder to the recipient to pay their premium. I expected it to fetch more than £10.56.

 

 

49.22This cover is a very attractive example of an Express cover with a pair of 1 1/2d Jubilees. More info about the Express post can be found in this article. It fetched £49.22.

83.86And finally a cover sent during the Boer war. More unusual however is that it was sent without stamps due to their unavailability. Most mail from the Boer war was addressed to England, but this item was actually intended for Switzerland and hence franked by the Post Office in London for the onward journey by three 1900 1/2d greens and a 1881 1d lilac. Obviously more uncommon than I realised as it sold for £83.86.

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