A Little Piece of Love and Understanding

"The collecting of stamps brings untold millions of people of all nations into greater understandings of their world neighbours".

- Francis Cardinal Spellman of America while laying the foundation stone of the Cardinal Spellman Museum at Weston, Massachusetts on July 27, 1972.

The describing of all lots for our first sale 2012 is now complete and the catalogue is in preparation. This process takes around a week before it is transferred to Pardy & Son for printing and publication. At the same time the auction is posted on this website, providing even more lot illustrations than the printed catalogue can accommodate, for viewing by collectors around the world.

Our first sale of the Spring season will take place over three sessions on Wednesday 7th and Thursday 8th March.

The First Session of 470 lots, commencing at 11 am on the 7th begins with a 138 lot section of Miscellaneous & Mixed Lots with estimates ranging from £12,000-14,000 to just £60-70. The remainder of the auction is arranged in alphabetical fashion, this first session presenting countries from Aden to Gambia, including a significant offering of British Levant including rare Specimen material. High prices may also be expected from another strong section of modern China.

An expected selling rate of 200—250 lots per hour enables us to start our Second Session of 576 lots at 2 pm. This session will cover German States to New Guinea and includes the fine Wheldon family collection of Germany, Malaya and States featuring the Anthony Winner collection, and the Tony Farmer collection of Leeward Islands.

The Third Session, 533 lots that conclude the auction, will start at 11 am on Thursday 8th and includes countries from New Zealand to Zanzibar. This morning should see plenty of international attention from collectors attracted by the ‘Napoleon’ collection of Saint Helena postal history and covers, the ‘Warren’ collection of South Africa, and the unusual collection of ‘Adsons’ formed by brothers Charles and Francis Kiddle.

For the uninitiated, ‘Adsons’ is the term used for New Zealand stamps with advertisements on the back. This experiment occurred in 1893 with different advertisements being printed on the backs of the stamps of the ‘Second Sideface’ issues in their sheet of 240 format. From their study we may gain a fuller understanding of the nineteenth century New Zealander and his need for soap, potted meat, odourless waterproofs, etc.

This commercial experiment was judged unsuccessful but with four panes of 60 in each sheet, several perforation variations, three settings and seven advertisement colours involved, sheet reconstructions can be enjoyable and challenging.

So if you have finished that jigsaw you were given for Christmas...

JG