$1M Stamp Album: October 2016

Monday, 24 October 2016

Pages 86-87 iii

11 Canada, 1868, on laid paper (on wove paper same stamp worth only $2) ; K. Bileski, Winnipeg, Canada.
12 New Zealand, 1855; Maurice Burrus, Strasbourg, France.
13 Newfoundland, 1919; Arcticus.
14 Mauritius, 1848, with "pence" misspelled "penoe," earliest impression; Burrus.
15 Baden, 1851, color error, should be rose instead of blue-green; Champion.
16 Transvaal, 1869, dark-green tete-beche pair; British Museum.
17 Great Britain, 1902; Robert J. Gill, Baltimore.
18 France, 1849, vermilion block, with tete-beche pair; Champion.

Pages 86-87 ii

Previous - Next

1 - Mauritius (British island east of Madagascar), 1848, earliest impression; Pacificus.
2 - Sweden, 1855, rarest stamp of Europe, error, should be bluegreen instead of yellow; Dr. Hans Lundberg, Toronto, Canada.
3 - Honduras, 1925, world's rarest airmail; Oscar Lichtenstein, Rumson, N.J.
4 - Great Britain, 1864, plate 77; British Museum.
5 - Mauritius, 1847; Queen Elizabeth.
6 - St. Louis, Mo., 1845, greenish paper, Postmaster Provisional (a stamp issued by a local U.S. postmaster before government -issued stamps); Raymond H. Weill Co., New Orleans.
7 - Switzerland, 1850, with complete frame around central cross not on later printings; Dr . Hans Leeman, Geneva.
8 - Moldavia, 1858; Philip Ward Jr., Philadelphia.
9 - Western Australia, 1854, Inverted Swan; Ward.
10 - Naples, 1860; Theodore Champion, Paris.

Mauritius block of four

Scott values single examples of the 1848 1 penny orange, earliest impression, as $42,500 / $15,750 for mint / used. This block of four was sold by Siegel Auction Galleries in 1996 for $250,000. The online catalogue description is as follows,

MAURITIUS, 1848, 1p Orange Vermilion on Yellowish Paper, Earliest Impression (3; SG 3). Positions 7-8/10-11, unused block of four from lower left corner of the sheet, beautiful prooflike impression from the earliest state of the plate, richly inked and vivid fresh color, large to huge margins including part of sheet margins at left and bottom, horizontal crease between the stamps and vertical crease thru two righthand stamps, not affecting appearance, few faint toned spots on back
THE FAMOUS AND UNIQUE UNUSED BLOCK OF THE ONE-PENNY "POST PAID" EARLIEST IMPRESSION. THE MOST IMPORTANT UNUSED MULTIPLE OF MAURITIUS AND ONE OF THE OUTSTANDING IMPERFORATE BLOCKS OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE.

This remarkable survivor from the early period of the Mauritius post office can be traced as far back as Henry J. Duveen's ownership. It is not known from whom Duveen acquired the block, although he did purchase a significant portion of Sir William B. Avery's Mauritius collection. When the Duveen collection was dispersed through private sales by Charles J. Phillips in 1922-1926, the block figured prominently among the items purchased by Arthur Hind. After Hind's death, his Mauritius was offered as the fourth part of the British Empire series conducted by H. R. Harmer of London (June 12, 1934), and the "Post Paid" block sold for the U.S. dollar equivalent of $23,688, a staggering price that eclipsed the combined figure paid for the 1p and 2p "Post Office" stamps and came close to matching the amount realized by the 1p and 2p "Post Office" combination cover. The buyer was Alfred H. Caspary, presumably in competition with Maurice Burrus and Alfred F. Lichtenstein. Although Caspary's Mauritius collection paled in comparison to the holdings of his contemporaries, Burrus and Lichtenstein - he lacked even a single example of the "Post Office" stamps - the two titans of British Empire philately must have coveted their friend's "Post Paid" block. In 1958, after Caspary's death, his Mauritius was sold by H. R. Harmer, and the "Post Paid" block was featured in color in the sale catalogue, the only item in all of the Caspary sales to receive such chromatic distinction. It realized $18,500 and soon became part of the Josiah K. Lilly collection. When our firm sold the Lilly collection after his death, the "Post Paid" block realized $64,000 (March 16, 1967).

Thanks to Siegel Auction Galleries for the image and quote.
[accessed 19th October 2016]

Sweden 1885 colour error

This stamp, valued by LIFE at $40,000 in 1954, sold for $2,300,000 in 2010 and changed hands again in 2013 for an undisclosed amount. Scott [2007] sets the value at $3M.The story is told by Wikipedia,

In 1855, Sweden issued its first postage stamps, in a set of five values depicting the Swedish coat of arms, with denominations ranging from three to 24 Swedish skillings. The three-skilling stamp was normally printed in a blue-green color, with the eight-skilling stamp being printed in yellowish orange. It is not known exactly what went wrong, but the most likely explanation is that a stereotype of the eight-skilling printing plate (which consisted of 100 stereotypes assembled into a 10 × 10 array) was damaged or broken, and it was mistakenly replaced with a three-skilling. The number of stamps printed in the wrong color is unknown, but so far only one example has been found.
Somehow, this error went entirely unnoticed at the time, and by 1873 the Swedish currency was changed. The skilling stamps were replaced by new stamps denominated in "öre". In 1886, a young collector named Georg Wilhelm Backman was going through covers in his grandmother's attic at the farm Väster Munga Gård north of Västerås, and came across one with a three-skilling stamp, for which the Stockholm stamp dealer Heinrich Lichtenstein was offering seven kronor apiece. After it had changed hands several times, Sigmund Friedl sold it to Philipp von Ferrary in 1894, who had at that time the largest known stamp collection in the world, and paid the breathtaking sum of 4,000 Austro-Hungarian gulden. As time passed, and no other "yellows" surfaced despite vigorous searching, it became clear that the stamp was not only rare, but quite possibly the only surviving example.
When Ferrary's collection was auctioned in the 1920s, Swedish Baron Eric Leijonhufvud bought the yellow stamp, and then Claes A. Tamm bought it in 1926 for £1,500 (pound sterling) in order to complete his collection of Swedish stamps. In 1928, the stamp was sold to the lawyer Johan Ramberg for £2,000, and he kept it for nine years. In 1937, King Carol II of Romania purchased it from London auction house H. R. Harmer for £5,000, and in 1950 it went to Rene Berlingen for an unknown amount of money. In the 1970s, the Swedish Postal Museum caused controversy by declaring the stamp to be a forgery, but after examinations by two different commissions, it was agreed that this was a genuine stamp.
In 1984, the yellow stamp made headlines when it was sold by David Feldman for 977,500 Swiss francs. It was resold in 1990 for over $1,000,000. Then, in 1996 it sold again for 2,880,000 Swiss francs. Each successive sale was a world record price for a postage stamp.
On 22 May 2010, the yellow stamp was auctioned once again by David Feldman in Geneva, Switzerland. It sold "for at least the $2.3 million price [that] it set a record for in 1996". The buyer reportedly was an "international consortium" and the seller was a financial firm auctioning the stamp to pay the former owner's debt. The exact price and the identity of the buyer were not disclosed, however, and all bidders reportedly were sworn to secrecy. The buyer has subsequently been identified as Armand Rousso, "a colorful philatelic player ... known ... for a number of high-profile activities."
In May 2013 the stamp was acquired in a private sale by Count Gustaf Douglas, a Swedish nobleman and politician.

[accessed 19th October 2016]

Compared to the first two, unique items, the remainder of the stamps in this section are (relatively) merely rare and expensive.

3. Honduras 1925 25c on 10c dark blue airmail
Sc-C12 SG236c See Linns for this stamp's hisory.

4. GB 1d red 1864
Sc33 SG43 Penny Red Plate 77, Scott [2007] $150,000 / $130,000. Story here.

5. Mauritius 1847
Sc2 SG2 the 2d Post Office, see Page 85.

6. St. Louis Provisional 1845
Sc11X3 SG77 The 20c stamp is valued at $85,000, the 5c and 10c at $6,500. Scott [2007].

7. Switzerland 1850
Sc6 SG9 The expensive versions of this stamp have a "full black frame around the cross".

8. Moldovia 1858
Sc4 SG3

9. Western Australia 1854 invert
Sc3 SG3h Inverted swan

10. Naples 1860
Sc8 SG8 The expensive stamp is deep blue, the plate altered from Sc1 to change the denomination from ½ G(rana) to ½ T(ornesi). A later plate change was made to replace the coat of arms with the cross of Savoy.

Tuesday, 11 October 2016

Pages 86-87 i

PICK OF THE GREATEST COLLECTIONS

Here, in one spectacular display, are 53 of the rarest gems picked from the world's great stamp collections. LIFE's estimate of values is given, but because stamp economics is highly volatile the actual selling price might be higher or lower. Below, with the identification, are the names of owners or custodians (three owners who prefer anonymity are listed as " Atlanticus," "Pacificus" and " Arcticus"):

1 - Mauritius (British island east of Madagascar), 1848, earliest impression; Pacificus.
2 - Sweden, 1855, rarest stamp of Europe, error, should be bluegreen instead of yellow; Dr. Hans Lundberg, Toronto, Canada.
3 - Honduras, 1925, world's rarest airmail; Oscar Lichtenstein, Rumson, N.J.
4 - Great Britain, 1864, plate 77; British Museum.
5 - Mauritius, 1847; Queen Elizabeth.
6 - St. Louis, Mo., 1845, greenish paper, Postmaster Provisional (a stamp issued by a local U.S. postmaster before government -issued stamps); Raymond H. Weill Co., New Orleans.
7 - Switzerland, 1850, with complete frame around central cross not on later printings; Dr . Hans Leeman, Geneva.
8 - Moldavia, 1858; Philip Ward Jr., Philadelphia.
9 - Western Australia, 1854, Inverted Swan; Ward.
10 - Naples, 1860; Theodore Champion, Paris.
11 - Canada, 1868, on laid paper (on wove paper same stamp worth only $2) ; K. Bileski, Winnipeg, Canada.
12 - New Zealand, 1855; Maurice Burrus, Strasbourg, France.
13 - Newfoundland, 1919; Arcticus.
14 - Mauritius, 1848, with "pence" misspelled "penoe," earliest impression; Burrus.
15- Baden, 1851, color error, should be rose instead of blue-green; Champion.
16- Transvaal, 1869, dark-green tete-heche pair; Br itish Museum.
17- Great Britain, 1902; Robert J. Gill, Baltimore.
18- France, 1849, vermilion block, with tete-heche pair; Champion.
19- Hawaii, 1851, unused, Missionary (so called because it was commonly used by missionaries); Burrus.
20- Uruguay, 1858, tete-heche pair; Atlanticus.
21 - Zurich, 1843; Leeman.
22- Geneva, 1843, strip of three doublestamps; Leeman.
23- Uruguay, 1858, tete-heche pair; Atlanticus.
24-Bavaria, 1849, tete-heche pair in block of 12; Atlanticus.
25- British Guiana, 1852, block of four; Stolow, New York.
26- Egypt, 1926, block of four from sheet of 25 (price quotEll: l is for all 25); ex-King Farouk.
27- New South Wales, 1850; British Museum.
28- Moldavia, 1858, tete-heche pair ; estate of ex-King Carol of Rumania.
29- Natal, 1902; Champion.
30-Uniontown, Ala., 1861, two cents, Confederate Postmaster Provisional ; H.R. Harmer Inc., New York.
31 - Austria, 1856, 6-kreuzer, newspaper stamp; Champion.
32- Cape of Good Hope, 1861, four-pence blue, with one-penny error; Atlanticus.
33-Reunion, 1852; Champion.
34-Portuguese Guinea, 1881, overprinted Cape Verde stamps with one, through Portuguese post-office error, printed "Mozambique"; Champion.
35- Moldavia, 1858, unused; Champion.
36- Honduras, 1925, red air-mail overprint; Lichtenstein.
37- Basel, 1845, first stamp printed in multicolor; Leeman.
38- France, 1869, five francs, value omitted by error; Champion.
39-British Columbia, 1865; Atlanticus.
40- Saxony, 1851, error, should be gray instead of blue; Champion.
41 - Canada, 1851; Atlanticus.
42- British Guiana, 1856, printed on sugar wrapping paper; J. & H. Stolow.
43- Brazil, 1843, 30 reis pair together with 60 reis; estate of Y. Souren, New York.
44-Newfoundland, 1927, De Pinedo ; Mrs. Caroline Cromwell, New York.
45-:-Mauritius, 1847, unused; Champion.
46- Gold Coast, 1883, one penny on four pence; British Museum.
47-Spain, 1851, error, should be red instead of blue; British Museum.
48- Millbury, Mass., 1846, Postmaster Provisional; Weill Co.
49-Tuscany, 1860; Champion. 50-France,
1850, tete-heche pair; Champion.
51-Newfoundland, 1860, orange-vermilion; British Museum.
52-British Guiana, 1856, four cents, magenta, unused; Stolow.
53-Ceylon, 1859; British Museum.

Front cover iii

Previous - Next

8. Victoria, Australia, 1901;
9. South Australia, 1883;
10. Norway, 1925;
11. Liechtenstein, 1927;
12. Belgium, 1941;
13. Queensland, Australia, 1903;
14. Libia, 1930;

8. Victoria, Australia, 1901
Sc203 SG392 6d emerald $18 / $2

9. South Australia, 1883
Sc76a SG 1889 red-brown in Scott $1 / $2

10. Norway, 1925
Sc106 SG $8 / $16

11. Liechtenstein, 1927
Sc-B3 SG $6 / $5

12. Belgium, 1941
Sc-B291 SG 40c / 40c

13. Queensland, Australia, 1903
Sc125a SG There are two versions, the difference being the size of the "Queensland" inscription, either 18mm or 17½mm. Both are priced at $30 / $7.

14. Libia, 1930
Sc-B25 SG78 $2 / $11

Page 85 - iii- Mauritius "Post Office" stamps on cover

Previous
This was sold on 1st December 2016 for €2M ($2.1M).
Described in LIFE as, "Stamps on $75,000 envelope … issued in 1847 by Postmaster of British island of Mauritius."

Printing plate

Image from Feldman

Looking first at the individual stamps, there were two values, the one penny red-brown and the two pence blue. There was a single printing plate with just one of each value and Wikipedia suggests that 500 copies of each stamp were printed.

Feldman states that there are only six known examples of the stamps on cover:

"Three of the covers are single frankings of the 1d value; one is in the British Library (Tapling Collection),
another in the Royal Collection (since 1904).
the third, known as the “Ball Envelope,” is ex Kanai, and was sold by [Feldman] in the last decade.
A single franking 2d cover to Bordeaux is in the German Postal Museum, [The French dealer Théophile Lemaire bought the Bordeaux letter bearing a single two pence stamp for £1,200, and sold it to the German dealer Philipp Kosack for £1,400. Kosack then sold it to the Reichspostmuseum in Berlin, Helen Morgan blog] while
the famous 1d + 2d franking, also to Bordeaux, was the highlight of the Kanai collection, and achieved the highest price ever obtained by a philatelic object, CHF 6’250’000, still the record for any philatelic cover.
Finally the Bombay cover" which Feldman is selling and prompted their post. This is the cover featured in the LIFE article.

Images for four of the six covers have been found so far.


1. Tapling Collection	2. the Royal Collection
image from the British Library	image from the Smithsonian National Postal Museum

img	img
3. the Ball Envelope	4. single 2d Bordeaux
image from	image from


5. 1d + 2d Bordeaux	6. the Bombay cover
image from Wikipedia	image from Feldman

Feldman provides a history of the Bombay cover,

"Its provenance includes its discovery in 1897 in an Indian bazaar, soon passing through the hands of dealer W.H. Peckitt to Vernon Roberts, later owned (1906) by Worthington, who sold it to Alfred F. Lichtenstein in 1917. It was considered one of the most important items of his collection.
When this cover was sold in 1968 as Lot 1 of the Dale-Lichtenstein collection, it brought an astounding $380,000 and ended up, a year later, in the hands of Raymond Weill.
Offered again at auction in 1989 as part of the Weill Brothers stock, it was bought in for CHF 2’600’000
and subsequently sold to Dr. Chan Chin Cheung, who held it until its sale in 1996 to Guido Craveri, who exhibited it in New York at Anphilex ’96 as one of the Aristocrats of Philately.
Subsequently sold to an unidentified private collector, and
soon to be offered by Private Treaty though our company, the “Bombay” cover remains the “ne plus ultra” of condition for this very rare classic issue, and offers as well a great deal of pride (and fame, if desired) for its next owner !"

The cover sold at Feldman for €2M ($2.1M), against an estimate of €3-5M.
The copper plate was also sold for €1.1M, estimate €2-3M.

Revaluation

I'll keep the score here.

Page 85 - ii - British Guiana 1c magenta

Previous - Next

To recap, LIFE describes the two entries on Page 85 as,

The face and the back of a $100,000 stamp, and
Stamps on $75,000 envelope … issued in 1847 by Postmaster of British island of Mauritius.

This page will deal with the first of those, the British Guiana 1c magenta. The image, right, is from the Wikipedia page on the stamp, as are most of the following details.

LIFE valued it at $100,000 in 1954, therefore making up 10% of the $1M Stamp Album.

It was last sold on 17th June 2014 for $9,480,000.

To quote Wikipedia,

"Only one copy of the 1c stamp is known to exist. It is in used condition and has been cut in an octagonal shape. A signature, in accordance with Dalton's policy, can be seen on the left hand side, along with a heavy postmark.

It was discovered in 1873 by a 12-year-old Scottish schoolboy, Louis Vernon Vaughan, in the Guyanese county of Demerara (whose postmark the stamp bears), amongst his uncle's letters. There was no record of it in his stamp catalogue, so he sold it some weeks later for six shillings to a local collector, N.R. McKinnon.

In 1878 McKinnon's collection was sold to a Liverpool stamp dealer, Thomas Ridpath, for £120.

Shortly afterwards, the same year, Thomas Ridpath sold the 1c to Philipp von Ferrary for about £150.
His massive stamp collection was willed to a Berlin museum but following Ferrary's death in 1917 the entire collection was taken by France as war reparations following the end of World War I.

Arthur Hind bought it during a series of fourteen auctions in 1922 for over $36,000 (reportedly outbidding three kings, including George V); on 6 April 1922, sale 3, lot 295, the stamp sold for 300,000 franc + 17½% tax (@48 frs to £1 = £7,343).

On 30 October 1935 it was offered for sale at Harmer Rooke & Co auction 2704, lot 26, where a bid of £7,500 was received from Percival Loines Pemberton. However the lot was withdrawn and returned to Mrs Scala (formerly Mrs Hind). In 1940, she offered it for private sale through the philately department of Macy's department store in New York City. It was purchased for $40,000 by Fred "Poss" Small, an Australian-born engineer from Florida, who had wanted to own the stamp since he first heard about it as a boy. In acquiring it, Small completed a full set of stamps from British Guiana.

In 1970, Small auctioned his entire stamp collection (estimated to be worth $750,000), and the 1c stamp was acquired by a syndicate of Pennsylvanian investors, headed by Irwin Weinberg, who paid $280,000 for it and spent much of the decade exhibiting it in a worldwide tour.

John E. du Pont bought it for $935,000 in 1980, setting the world's record for a single stamp price again. Subsequently it was believed to have been locked in a bank vault while its owner was in prison. Dupont died while still incarcerated on 9 December 2010.

It was sold from the DuPont estate on 17 June 2014 at a Sotheby's New York auction, sale number N09154, for $9,480,000, including buyer's premium. It took only two minutes to sell to an anonymous bidder, and was the fourth time the stamp had broken the world's record for a single-stamp bid; this time, the sale broke the 1996 record of $2,300,000 for the Treskilling Yellow, an 1855 Swedish stamp. The purchaser has since identified himself as shoe designer and businessman Stuart Weitzman who collected stamps as a child."

[Wikipedia accessed 11th October 2016]

Monday, 10 October 2016

Front Cover ii

Previous - Next

I'll pursue identification one row at a time.

1 Yeman, 1948;
2 unrecognized South Moluccas republic, 1952;
3 Latvia, 1932;
4 Eritrea, 1934;
5 Barbados, 1906;
6 Indonesia, 1946;
7 Armenia, 1921;

1. Yeman, 1948
Both Scott and Gibbons note that this stamp is part of as set designed to commemorate Yemen's admission to the UN but that it was not actually issued and they do not number it. A set of five stamps was found on ebay for $30 citing Michel #109-113.

2. unrecognized South Moluccas republic, 1952
Scott states, "It appears that stamps of the so-called republic of South Moluccas were privately issued and had no postal use. Accordingly, they are not recognized as postage stamps". Gibbons lists a set of Netherland Indies overprints but is similarly dismissive of any other issues. These stamps are on sale on ebay: the issue depicted is denominated 5r and that has not been found but a set of six stamps of the same design is priced at $5.

3. Latvia, 1932
Sc-B86 SG213 Semi-postal, $4.

4. Eritrea, 1934
Sc158 SG 199 $2 / $5

5. Barbados, 1906
Sc106 SG152 $13 / 30c

6. Indonesia, 1946
Sc15 SG? 30c

7. Armenia, 1921
Sc292 SG- $2

no. text
Sc SG narrative

Friday, 7 October 2016

Page 85

Next

Turning now to the expensive stamps, here's the first page of the article,

And here's the text,

"STAMP ALBUM WORTH $1,000,000

FOR FIRST TIME 'LIFE' BRINGS WORLD'S CLASSICS TOGETHER

For its size and weight the postage stamp above is the most valuable single object in the world. Costing only one cent when it was issued in 1856 by British Guiana, this stamp today could probably not be bought for less than $100,000 - 10 million times its original price. The envelope below, which has only two one-penny stamps on it, has a valuation just as incredible: $75,000.

Why anyone would pay such fantastic sums for such seemingly worthless scraps of paper is something that can be completely understood only by those avid hobbyists called stamp collectors, of whom there are 12 million in the U.S. alone. Rarity of a stamp together with its physical perfection are general basic standards of value. The rarity in many instances has been caused by inadvertent printing mistakes or "errors"- the wrong color of ink, an inverted center, a tete-beche (a single stamp upside down in relation to another on the same sheet). But rarity alone is not enough to give great value. To become one of the world's premier classics a stamp, like a woman, must have that ineffable some thing called "desirability" which, when a man sees it, makes him willing to give up his money, risk his reputation, commit theft or even murder to possess it. The British Guiana, for example, is not a beautiful stamp. It is dirty, its corners have been clipped off, the penned initials of the postmaster scar its face. True, the stamp is unique, the only one of its kind known to exist. Yet other more attractive stamps are unique. Its irresistible fascination for collectors is an enigma.

On the back (right, above) of the British Guiana are the marks of three owners, the fleur-de-lis of Count Philippe von Ferrary, the clover of Arthur Hind, the comet of the present owner. The name of the present owner is one of the world's best-kept secrets, anonymity being an idiosyncrasy of many collectors. He bought the British Guiana in 1940 through an agent, Finbar Kenny of J. and H. Stolow of New York. According to Kenny, not even the man's wife knows that he possesses it and LIFE had to negotiate through Kenny for permission to photograph it. LIFE does know who owns the Mauritius envelope below but has promised not to tell. It is the collector identified on the following pages by the pseudonym "Atlanticus."

The assemblage of rare and valuable stamps shown in this article is unparalleled in publishing and philatelic history. Never in the 114 years since the postage stamp was invented has such a collection been seen, even at the great exhibitions in London, Paris and New York. Because of a U.S. restriction, most of these stamps have never been seen in color reproduction in this country. Some have never even been photographed before, even in black and white. In 1952 the U.S. lifted some of its restriction on reproducing foreign stamps in color, and LIFE spent two years making up this album. All of the stamps, except those of the U.S. are shown here in actual size. LIFE' s estimate of their value is over a million dollars, based on past sales as well as present retail prices. But each stamp is so treasured by its owner that no one man could buy all of them at any price."

There are two items on the page, described as,
"The face and the back of a $100,000 stamp", and
"Stamps on $75,000 envelope were issued in 1847 by Postmaster of British island of Mauritius".

Front Cover i

Next

This improved scan of the front cover is courtesy of Photoshop's ingenious stitching of two A4 scans,

Page 102 explains the cover,

GUIDE TO THE COVER

LIFE's cover, crammed with 118 stamps, shows the universal scope of' the subject matter of stamps-war and peace, heroes and villains, religion and sex. With one exception these stamps can be bought by schoolboy collectors-the Falkland Islands Penguin costs $25, but the average cost for the others is about 30¢ apiece. Above is a reproduction of the cover with stamps keyed by number to the identification below.

These 118 stamps at a stated average of 30c are not part of the $1M album, but given that they include a Penny Black (they start at £50 and catalogue at several times that), it will probably prove necessary to identify and price them all. Here's the full list (thanks again to Adobe for Acrobat's OCR).

1 Yeman, 1948;
2 unrecognized South Moluccas republic, 1952;
3 Latvia, 1932;
4 Eritrea, 1934;
5 Barbados, 1906;
6 Indonesia, 1946;
7 Armenia, 1921;
8 Victoria, Australia, 1901;
9 South Anstralia, 1883;
10 Norway, 1925;
11 Liechtenstein, 1927;
12 Belgium, 1941;
13 Queensland, Australia, 1903;
14 Libia, 1930;
15 Siam, 1929;
16 Isle of Coo, 1930;
17 French Equatorial Africa, 1942;
18 Austria, 1922;
19 Spanish Morocco, 1928;
20 Spanish Guinea, 1909;
21 Horta, Azores, 1896;
22 Salvador, 1895;
23 Ethiopia, 1947;
24 Hawaii, 1894;
25 Marshall Islands, 1915;
26 Ionian Islands, 1859; 27 Indochina, 1942;
28 Azerbaijan, 1919;
29 St. Vincent, 1888;
30 Newfoundland, 1897;
31 Egypt, 1914;
32 Helgoland, 1876;
33 Panama, 1906;
34 Slovakia, 1944;
35 Bavaria, 1911;
36 Mexico, 1875;
37 Switzerland, 1930;
38 Fiume, 1920;
39 Bulgaria, 1937;
40 Netherlands, 1949;
41 Bolivar, department of Colombia, 1863;
42 World's first stamp, Penny Black, 1840;
43 Spain, 1854;
44 Saar, 1925;
45 North Borneo, 1894;
46 Poland, 1932;
47 Russia, 1913;
48 Persia, 1880;
49 North Ingermanland, short-lived anti-Soviet country, 1920;
50 Greece, 1937;
51 Portugal, 1928;
52 Curacao, 1942;
53 Jhalawar, India, 1887;
54 Guatemala, 1881;
55 Finland, 1941·;
56 Papua, 1938;
57 Paraguay, 1939;
58 French Congo, 1900;
59 Madagascar, 1942
60 Croatia, 1944;
61 Hejaz, 1916
62 Liberia, 1896;
63 Zanzibar, 1896;
64 Falkland Islands, 1933;
65 Palestine, 1941;
66 French India, 1942;
67 Honduras, 1903;
68 Lithuania, 1921;
69 Zelaya State, Nicaragua, 1912;
70 Virgin Islands, 1899;
71 Germany, 1928;
72 Malta, 1899;
73 French colonies, 1862;
74 Gambia, West Africa, 1886;
75 Kishangarh, India, 1904;
76 Papal States, 1867;
77 Danzig, 1921;
78 Spain, 1930;
79 Sweden, 1891;
80 Sarawak, 1875;
81 Argentina, 1858;
82 Nova Scotia, 1860;
83 Niger Coast, 1891;
84 Uruguay, 1897;
85 Hungary, 1946, 500,000,000,000,000,000 pengoes, highest denomination stamp ever issued;
86 Mecklenburg-Schwerin, 1864;
87 Iceland, 1930;
88 Mauritius, 1858;
89 Turks Islands, West Indies, 1889;
90 Sierra Leone, 1933;
91 Bosnia Herzegovina, 1912;
92 Oltre Giuba, Italian Somaliland, 1926;
93 St. Lucia, 1902;
94 Estonia, 1928;
95 Navanagar, India, 1880;
96 Aitutaki, 1920;
97 Jind, India, 1882;
98 Brazil, 1854;
99 Bahamas, 1875;
100 Cochin, India, 1933;
101 Modena, Italy, 1852;
102 Peru, 1873;
103 New Guinea, 1939;
104 Confederate States of America, 1863;
105 Luxembourg, 1935;
106 Nyassa, 1901;
107 Romania, 1937;
108 Costa Rica, 1863;
109 New Brunswick, 1860;
110 Italy, 1933;
111 Ukraine, 1923;
112 Crete,1905;
113 Zululand, South Africa, 1894;
114 Tripolitania, 1933;
115 Mozambique Company, East Africa, 1937;
116 Sirmur, India, 1899;
117 Japan, 1919;
118 San Marino, 1944.

Thursday, 6 October 2016

Intro

On 3rd May 1954 (a few months before I was born), the cover on Life magazine promised "First Time in Color, Eight Pages of the World's Rarest Stamps". The article inside was entitled "Stamp Album Worth $1,000,000".

Google Books has a copy of the magazine here: the article begins on page 85.

I bought a copy on ebay for $9 and paid $22 to ship it to London. My intention is to list the stamps and compare today's prices to those of 1954.

With specific famous stamps, I look for the most recent sale (if any), otherwise my main source is the 2007 Scott Classic.

The order of posts may seem rather random, but I'm working my way gradually through the front page of the magazine and also through the stamps shown in the actual article.

The Navigation page might help and the Revaluation page shows the current score.

$1M Stamp Album