Lot 16 Canada #3 1851 12d Black Queen Victoria Imperforate on Laid Paper, a mint single with large sheet margin at right, possessing full original gum and never hinged, very fine.
Definitely the star attraction of this collection, being one of only two examples of this stamp with original never hinged gum, the other being the “Black Empress” which sold for US$425,000 (plus buyer’s premium) at Spink New York in 2011. The stamp offered here is the “sister” of the magnificent mint sheet margin example sold by Sparks Auctions in 2017 for C$327,000, as it was formerly located just below it on the sheet, and was for a long time the bottom stamp of a famous sheet margin vertical pair. Only 1,450 were sold, and of those the Siegel census records only seventeen mint singles with original gum, plus four pairs.
A first class world rarity, and if you are working on completing a mint never hinged collection of Canada, this is a unique opportunity to acquire what is one of Canada’s rarest mint never hinged stamps. Catalogue value is for original gum only, and does not factor a premium for never hinged which should rightly be accorded to this superlative stamp.
Provenance:
This is the bottom stamp of the Charles Lathrop Pack vertical pair sold as lot 26 on Dec. 6, 1944 by Harmer Rooke in New York;
Robert Lyman, who apparently bought the pair at a Mar. 11, 1959 Robert Siegel sale in New York, and who then cut the pair into two singles;
Andrew Holtz, who bought it from a client of the above ca. 1986, and whose name appears on one of the accompanying certificates;
Arnold Nyman, who bought it from Holtz at a stamp show in Helsinki, Finland in 1987;
Saskatoon Stamp Centre, who bought it at a David Feldman auction in 2008;
Current owner, who bought it from above in same year.
Accompanied by a 1986 Greene Foundation certificate issued to A. G. Holtz, as well as a fresh 2022 Greene Foundation certificate. Unitrade C$320,000.
