On 2nd May 2012, Spink sold “The Adriano Landini Collection of Fine Covers of the World”, including a few covers of interest to the Jubilee collector.
April 2012 Ebay Report
Top 3 Items of the Month
Niger Coast covers are scarce, and this one went cheaply at £118.15. If I hadn’t have missed it, it would of gone for more! However covers from Old Calabar River are the most common.
Postal history from the Channel Islands is very collectable, and this attractive registered cover from Jersey fetched £56.68. Increasing its desirability is the 4 1/2d green and carmine which is one of the more difficult values to find on cover.
This cover sold for £58.75 because it is being sent to the Orange Free State (well at least that’s why I bought it!). In my September 2011 Ebay Report, I feature a cover also going to Orange Free State that sold for £97.45, so I’m happy with this purchase. The 7d rate is paying twice the 2 1/2d UPU rate plus 2d registration fee.
Filed under Ebay Reports
March 2012 Ebay Report
Top 5 Items of the Month
March was such a strong month for Jubilee items, that I’ve had to do a top 5 of the month! First off is this Niger Coast cover, which features three different issues. Sent registered from Opobo River, the franking pays the correct registered rate to England, and fetched £132.02
Next up is this attractive British Bechuanaland 6d purple on rose block of four cancelled with a single central Pitsani cds. The buyer snapped this up for only $37.90. If I had seen this item before it had finished I would have certainly bid more than that. Not too long afterwards, it was on Deverrell MacGregor’s website for £55, and sold very quickly.
This high franking on a parcel post label sold for £119.50. It bears a 1s green and a 4 1/2d green & carmine, both of which are scarce as singles on parcel labels, so it was no surprise it fetched a good price. Parcel labels are very collectable.
This superb Bechuanaland cover is definitely the star eBay item of the month, and probably the year. This registered envelope is franked with no less than 27 stamps worth a total of 5s!! Eight different bidders bid seventeen times to try and take this item home, and unfortunately the usual last minute bidding took the price beyond what I was willing to pay for it, and it fetched £339.50. The philatelic nature of the cover put me off bidding higher, but it is still an outstanding Jubilee and Bechuanaland cover.
This cover definitely wins the title as “Most Unassuming Cover”, but look closer and you’ll see that it’s a little gem. Sold for a measly £4.20 (I am still kicking myself for forgetting to bid), it has been franked with four 1/2d vermilions. However, I assume that the registration label at the very top left was mistakenly applied, and was partially torn off by the sender before dropping it in the post box. The post clerk having seen this, has still assumed that the letter is intended to be sent registered. So not only is the franking insufficient, but the sending of registered letters was only allowed over the post office counter, hence the manuscript “Posted out of course” and the 6d worth of postage dues. Take another look, and you’ll notice that the stamps are cancelled in Torquay in 1916, and the post clerk has deemed them as an illegitimate franking and placed crosses next to the stamps. Hence explaining the 6d fine. A great little cover with a great story to tell.
Filed under Ebay Reports
British Levant Rarity in Grosvenor sale
The largest known multiple of the 1893 40pa on 1/2d vermilion provisional is up for sale in Grosvenor’s 7th-8th March 2012 sale of British Empire and Foreign Countries. The high opinion of the rarity of this unmounted mint strip of five is underlined by the £10’000-£12’000 estimate. Catalogued by Stanley Gibbons at £425 each, that means they are estimating at well over 4 times catalogue!
Better news for the modest collector though, as there is also a selection of the British Levant Jubilee issue with Specimen and Cancelled handstamps.
Filed under Auction News
February 2012 Ebay Report
Top 3 Items of the Month
This attractive unmounted mint block of four of the 6d purple on rose-red sold for £107.22. What makes it more interesting is that it shows the marginal marking signifying the middle of the sheet.
The Jubilee issue stamps used in Salonica are scarce, and the 1s green and carmine is the most scarce of them all. It is catalogued in the Stanley Gibbons Commonwealth catalogue at £190 and fetched £111.90.
This attractive piece bears the Niger Coast 2 1/2d and 5d tied by the oval cancel of Old Calabar (SG type Z1) in violet, and is in fact only recorded used on the 2 1/2d by the Stanley Gibbons Commonwealth catalogue. It sold for £148.
Filed under Ebay Reports
January 2012 Ebay Report
Top 3 Items of the Month
Kicking off 2012, we have this interesting advertisement from Bovril in the style of a cigarette card, showing the 1/2d vermilion (inscribed “Bovril / For Health and Strength”) and the 1881 1d lilac (inscribed “Bovril is the Product of Prime Ox Beef”) both “cancelled” by a Bovril cds. Unfortunately the card has been cut in half. It sold for £12.01.
This Army Telegraphs stamps often appear on Ebay, mostly on the 1/2d vermilion. However this 1/2d green has the much scarcer 8mm overprint, where the “A” is half over “L” and the “Y” is almost over “P”. In mounted mint condition, it sold for £79.84.
This scarce 1s green with inverted watermark in mounted mint condition sold for £266.00 plus postage. Catalogued in the Stanley Gibbons Specialised Volume 1 at £900, this was a very good result considering the image is quite poor and it is quite difficult to tell the condition.
Filed under Ebay Reports
December 2011 Ebay Report
Top 3 Items of the Month
I have two rare frankings with the 9d purple and blue this month to show you. The first is a single franking, and the only one I have ever seen. It doesn’t appear to be philatelic, but I can’t make out what rate it is paying, but the crayon markings on the front obviously hold the clue. If someone could help me out it will be much appreciated! It sold for £109.92.
Then only a few days later, this pair on cover sent by the Insured rate fetched £138.00. With the manuscript indicating that the contents was £50, the franking pays 15d in insurance and registration (5d for the first £12, each further insured amount of £12 pounds cost 2 1/2d extra), plus the double the UPU letter rate. Both are very welcome additions to my collection!
This cover definitely interested me, and I was planning to make a cheeky bid, but alas, I forgot about it and it was sold before I knew it…for £139.05! At first glance, it is just a pair of 2 1/2d paying the double letter rate to Italy. Nothing unusual there. But take a closer look at the image and you will notice that it is going to Sir Henry F. Ponsonby, who not only rose to the rank of Colonel in the Grenadier Gaurds and fought in Crimea, but also later became Keeper of the Privy Purse and Private Secretary to Queen Victoria!! Not only that, but the stamps are cancelled by the scarce Royal “V R” hooded cancel of London, with a Buckingham Palace wax seal of the reverse. Making this a wonderful item for the Royalty collector.
Filed under Ebay Reports
November 2011 Ebay Report
Top 3 Items of the Month
This insured registered cover fetched a handsome £216.03! Sent from West Kensington in London to Berlin in Germany, the cover has a very unusual franking paying 2s 8 1/2d, with the manuscript “insured for twenty pounds” at the top. For letters going abroad, the insurance fee was 5d for the first 12 pounds. This included the registration fee of 2d. Each further insured amount of 12 pounds cost 2 1/2d extra. Therefore paying 7 1/2d in insurance and registration (manuscript as such at lower left), and 25d in postage (10 times the UPU letter rate). Despite the slightly soiled appearance, it is a wonderful franking.
Officials are, not only in my opinion, very underrated. The Inland Revenue overprints are certainly the most common, however it is hard to find a pair of halfpennys paying the 1d letter rate. This pair on an attractive printed OHMS envelope fetched £41.30.
Complete Telegrams like this are rare, and I’m still kicking myself for letting this one go for only £41.00. They are rare because they were supposed to have been destroyed after use. This was the more attractive of two examples that came up on eBay this month, and is franked with a 6d, 4d and a 1 1/2d.
Filed under Ebay Reports
October 2011 Ebay Report
Top 3 Items of the Month
As can be seen from my census of the 1s green and carmine on cover, there are less than 60 covers known. So while this cover has the most common rate of the 1s green and carmine frankings, and the condition isn’t fantastic, I still expected this cover to easily reach £300. Amazingly I was proven wrong and it fetched a measly £113.04. What a bargain!
The 40 PARAS overprint on the 1/2d vermilion is dogged by controversy due the misappropriation of the handstamp and subsequent use to create mint stamps and philatelic covers. This cover however appears to one of the few genuine usages. Not only that but it was sent registered with the 80pa on 5d paying the registration fee. So although the cover is quite foxed, competitive bidding saw this cover fetch $189.00 (about £120)
This quite scruffy cover fetched £266.50! Sent from Braintree to Shanghai, China, with the manuscript “To be left at the Post Office till called for”. Sent June 19th 1895, a look at the back shows that it remained at the Shanghai post office for nearly 10 months!! Hence the “Dead” manuscript at top left. Very interesting, but worth £266.50?
Filed under Ebay Reports
“Chartwell” Jubilees are SPECTACULAR
It was only last November, that the Gold Medal collection of Jubilees by Lady Mary Buiri was sold at Sotheby’s. Now Spink are offering on the 13th October, as part of the “Chartwell” collection, a collection of Jubilees possibly surpassing that of Lady Buiri’s!!
The most striking and desireable of the collection is lot 876 (pictured). A page of handpainted essays of the final design for the entire set on an archive page, and endorsed by the Inland Revenue Secretary and with “THE DESIGNS ARE SIMPLY DRAWN BY HAND AND DO NOT SHOW THE FINISHED EFFECT WHICH WILL BE OBTAINED BY ENGRAVING.” printed below. At £30’000-35’000, it’s no price to be sniffed at, but at £3’000 to £3’500 per essay (excluding commission of course), it is well worth the money, and in my opinion, would be the pinnacle of a Jubilee collection. That gives me 17 days to save up…
The rest of the collection is full of essays, die proofs, colour trials, CANCELLED overprints and so take a look at the catalogue!
Filed under Auction News
The 1887 Jubilee Issue 