Sparks Auctions is proud to present the Daniel Cantor Collection of Canada Small Queens, to be sold at our Auction Room on Tuesday, November 24th, 2015, beginning at 10:00am EST.
The Queen Victoria “Small Queen” definitives of 1870-1897 are one of the most avidly collected issues of Canadian philately. Featuring many different printings, perforation, colours, paper and plate varieties, and offering myriad postal rates and other fascinating postal history to collect, the Small Queens only continue to grow in interest and desirability.
The Daniel Cantor collection of Small Queens features stamps and postal history of a consistently high quality, offering collectors seeking the finest existing stamps in singles and multiples an opportunity to acquire many new additions to their collections. With more than 60 different destinations, the postal history section is the most comprehensive one-sale offering since the George Arfken sale of 1997 and S.J. Menich sale of 2000.
A few of the many highlights of the Cantor collection include: rare die proofs of the 2c to 50c values, the largest multiple of the scarce 1871 1c orange on thick, soft paper (lot 34), the sole well-centered mint example of the 1871 3c deep rose on thick, soft paper (lot 104); a unique imperforate pair of the 1890s 6c deep chocolate with major re-entry from position A24 (lot 145); a bisected usage of the 1872 6c yellow brown in outstanding state of preservation (lot 155); the celebrated mint block of fifteen of the 1881 10c reddish purple (lot 215); a pristine 1877 pre-UPU registered cover to England showing a rare use of the 8c registered letter stamp which formerly graced the Bill Gross collection (lot 351); and an 1882 non-UPU cover to Saint Helena franked with 1c yellow pair and 5c olive green block of five, offered publicly at auction for the first time (lot 462).
The sale of this collection is an exciting, not-to-be-missed event for advanced collectors of early Canadian stamps and postal history. Many of the items from the Cantor collection have come from illustrious collections including George Arfken, Sir Gawaine Baillie, Vincent Graves Greene, Dr. Clare Jephcott, Dale-Lichtenstein, S.J. Menich, Dr. Lewis Reford, Bill Simpson and, of special note, Ted Nixon.
Cantor’s collection of mint Canada classics was sold in Ottawa in 1991 while his international large gold collection of used Canada Cents & Pence issues was auctioned in New York City in 2011 for $1.5 million, breaking several individual records in the process. We expect the material from his Small Queen collection will generate a similar level of interest from collectors around the world.
Sparks Auctions of Ottawa, Canada, will offer the Daniel Cantor Small Queen Collection in a one-day single owner sale on Tuesday, November 24th, 2015. The sale will be held in our auction room, and live on the internet via Stamp Auction Network.
Catalogues will be mailed to subscribing collectors in late October, with a limited number of hardbound reference editions available by pre-order.
For more information, or to request a catalogue, please contact our offices by email (info@sparks-auctions.com), phone (613-567-3336) or at the address below.