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Canadian Stamp Auctions |
Recent Auction Highlights
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Canadian Stamp Auctions |
Recent Auction Highlights
| 17 June, 2011 - R. Maresch & Son Six years after
Canada’s first stamps were first issued, this beauty made its
appearance. It’s one of our favourites
Issued in 1857,
it featured the same portrait of Queen Victoria as the more famous 12
Penny Black. But for some reason, we prefer this dark green shade. There
aren’t many copies with borders as large as this, and also, with
such a clear view of the Queen’s face. You can see portions of
the adjacent stamps on the left and at the bottom. Whoever cut this
from the sheet was conscious of wanting to create a quality stamp with
full margins.
10¢
Albert - Horizontal "Stitch Watermark"
This is a very rare variety. We have only recorded two other copies at auction in the past 10 years. These sold for $900 in $1350 respectively. If this had only been the regular version of Scott 17, it would have been special to find it this well centered. But for a variety this rare, it is truly a remarkable combination. Maresch noted that it was the nicest copy they had ever seen. It came with a 1996 Greene certificate. A “stitch watermark” results from the paper passing over a gap in the printing press during the printing process. Few such stamps have survived over the years.
These prices show the strength of the Admiral set these days. We marvel at the demand it attracts, bearing in mind that some of the stamps in the set were issued in the billions. The only problem is that most were printed off centre. The few mint copies that remain that are well centered and NH, continued to be much sought after.
40¢
Flag Booklet – Imperforate
This imperforate
booklet was very fine and came complete with cover. With such a high
catalogue value, you may wonder how the price could be so low? We do
not have an explanation. We have recorded over 20 copies sold in the
past 10 years. On one occasion, one of these imperforate booklets sold
for $2,142. The lowest price we have recorded was $647. So in terms
of record prices, we can say this is a new low record price. This is
not great news for the seller but wonderful news for the buyer.
Three New Varieties
These three NH imperforate blocks come from the Christmas set issued in 1992. Maresch states that they are the first such blocks it has seen. This is our experience is well. However, in 1996, J. N. Sissons offered a complete imperforate sheet of 50 of Scott 1454 at auction. It sold for $15,500 or $1,240 for a block. In other words, similar to the price realized above. No similar sheets have been reported to our knowledge for Scott 1452 and 1453. It would appear from the similarity of the prices realized in this sale that the same bidder likely acquired all three blocks. We find it curious that rare blocks like this, printed in 1992, are only appearing some 19 years later. If they’d never appeared at auction before, where were they located all this time?
We continue to be
intrigued by the interest collectors are showing in the stamps of China
these days, even in far away Canada. The stamp below has appeared twice
in our recent auctions.
For more details
of this sale, please click on the highlights button.
This sale had three new record prices:
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