Auction News Network

Stolen Pony Express Letter For Sale

If you didn’t know better you’d think the Pony Express was a Hollywood creation, skinny, tough boys riding from Missouri over the Sierra Nevadas to California in 10-days. A stamp for a one-ounce letter cost about $50 in today’s dollars. One stolen in an Indian attack and later recovered is coming to market next month at R.A. Siegel Auction Galleries in New York.

Inverted Jenny May Glide To $450,000

Even those with little interest in stamps often have heard of the 1918 24-Cent Inverted Jenny, which typically achieves a staggering price. The latest one to appear at auction comes from the illustrious Merlin Collection of U.S. stamps, which Robert A. Siegel will offer in New York on November 28-29. Only one sheet of 100 stamps was produced. This stamp occupied position 48 on the sheet, and is expected to sell for $450,000.

English Postage Stamped By Nazis

Americans often forget the Nazis occupied the English Channel Islands near Normandy from 1940 to 1945, building massive fortifications and four concentration camps. Eighteen King George VI Jersey Island stamps overprinted with a Swastika will be sold by Spink and Son in London next month. High estimate is $40,000.

Inverted Jenny Glides To Market

Every so often, a 1918 “Inverted Jenny” stamp flies onto the auction market, quickening collectors’ pulses. The U.S. Postal Service produced only 100 examples of the 24-cent stamp in which, as a result of a printing error, a Curtiss biplane flies upside down. Back in 2007, one sold at auction for almost $1m. The example that Robert A. Siegel Auction Galleries will offer on June 27^th may not be quite as valuable. The stamp is rated a “Fine 70,” with an estimated value of $340,000. It won’t come as a big surprise, however, if the issue sells for a lot more.

Rejected Chinese Red Stamp Posts $1.46m

During the “Cultural Revolution,” Chinese leaders ordered a big stamp heralding “The Whole Country Is Red.” It had to go through committee and Mao for approval. Nobody could agree on a final design. Only eight samples were printed and one of those sold in Beijing for $1.146m, a record in Chinese philately.

Upside Down Stamps Will Draw Rightside Prices

Stamps printed upside down keep emerging from Cherrstone, particularly those printed in mainland China decades ago. One 1941 depiction of Sun Yat Sen is expected to sell in the neighborhood of $200,00 at the December New York auction. It’s thought only one sheet of 50 got out of the post office before the error was spotted.  A 1923 Peking stamp with the 2-cent postage inverted, one of only 13 known to exist, is estimated at $150,000.

Egyptian “Crown Jewel” Stamp Doubles Estimate

In London this week, the Spink Shreves auction called its stamp offerings the “Pearls of Arabia,” and the real pearl was the 1866 first issue cover of the Egyptian Post Office in Jeddah, an entire letter to Suez known as the ‘Crown Jewel of Saudi Arabia philately.’ It sold for $97,000. The high estimate had been $41,000.

29-Cent Stamps Worth A Fortune

Sometimes the Postal Service can be as unpredictable as the stock market. In 1992, the Post Office came out with a stamp to commemorate the Stock Exchange’s Bicentennial, but 56 were misprinted and the buildings in the center were upside down. A single today is listed at $76,000. At its September 13 sale in New York, Cherrystone’s is selling a rare block of four.

A Miss Is A Hit For Chinese Stamps

Stamp collectors hunger for printing errors, and Cherrystone Auctioneers in New York is selling a 1914-19 First Peking printing $2 black and blue19 with an intricately sketched Hall of Classics perfectly centered—but upside down. One of only 30 thought to exist with this mistake, the high estimate is $250,000 at the Sept.14-15 auction. UPDATE: The Peking 1914 $2 black and blue sold for $250,000. The 1925 3 Cts in Red also sold for $250,000, exactly meeting their pre-sale estimates.

Buyers Go Ape For Red Monkey Stamps

They’re called “Red Monkey Stamps” even though the monkey is not red but background is, all of which contributed to a record $184,000 paid for an 80-stamp sheet issued in 1980 by the Chinese postal service. Red is associated with good fortune in China. The monkey is one of the 12 animals in the Chinese Zodiac, and was the first one the government put on a stamp.

Custer’s Last Stamp

The letter was addressed to John S. Hiley, a member of Custer’s massacred 7^th Cavalry Regiment in the Great Sioux War. There weren’t too many niceties in those days. Somebody wrote, “Dead,” on the envelope and returned it to the sender. Spink Shreve is selling the cover at its August Collectors auction. It’s expected to fetch between $15,00 and $20,000.

Update: the cover sold above estimates for $28,000.

“Post Office Mauritius” Goes For $1.6m

Billed as the world’s most famous stamp, the blue “Post Office Mauritius,” sold yesterday at Spink’s auction in London for $1.6m after spirited bidding in the room was trumped by an unidentified buyer on the phone. The stamp comes from the world renowned Chartwell Collection.  Also sold was an 1840 Penny Black, the first adhesive stamp. Prior to that in the UK  you paid postage when it was delivered.

“Black Empress” Stamp Sells For $425,000

An 1851 stamp known as the “Black Empress” has sold at Spink Shreves for $425,000. One of the rarest stamps in the world, the Canadian 12d. Black Queen Victoria was in absolutely mint condition and had been estimated at $400-$500,000.

Rare Audrey Hepburn Stamps In Berlin

The original 2002 German stamp showed an image of Audrey Hepburn with a cigarette holder. When her son Sean Ferrer—an anti-tobacco advocate—objected, the stamp was withdrawn and all but a few copies destroyed. Tomorrow, for the benefit of charity, Ferrer will offer a very rare unused sheet of the stamps at auction in Berlin, where it’s expected to fetch at least $563,000.

Update: The sheet of ten stamps sold for $606,000.

George Washington’s Will

One of only 13 copies of George Washington’s will as well as early Presidential letters of Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and Jackson will be among the more than 200 lots offered by R.W.Oliver’s this week in a sale billed as “Personal Property of 10 Generations of the descendants of Thomas Green (b. 1640).” Much of the collection was accumulated by Andrew H. Green (1830-1918), who was known as “The Father of Greater New York.”