As regular auction followers know, there is a great amount of ordinary material in most collections. When describing these for an upcoming auction one cannot always resort to superlatives. On the other hand, it is hardly fair to say something like “and here’s another boring collection.”
Many such collections have no prominent feature whatsoever, while others have items which are pleasant surprises. One consignor described his uncle’s accumulation of modern American stamps as ordinary postage. Fortunately for him our describer is familiar with the Americana Series of USA stamps and immediately noticed the different colour of the twelve cent value. The result is our offering of lots 1024 and 1025.
1981 12c brownish red on reddish beige Americana precancel pair, mint never hinged with “PRESORTED/FIRST CLASS” service inscription, fine. A regular 12c coil is included for comparison. Scott CV$2250.
At other times we work on a collection where the possibility of varieties or even rarities is much more likely. In an extensive collection of early Vietnam we took the time to look closely and found a number of unlisted items. Likely the most important of these is Lot 1166.
1945-1946 2c and 4c Governor General Paul Dormer with overprint, on Indo-China (#253-254) with “VIET-NAM DOC-LAP TU-DO HANH-PHUC BUU-CHINH” overprint and wavy line obliterators. Three of the stamps have the third line “HANH-PHUC” inverted which is unlisted in Scott, no gum as issued, very fine. Estimate $300.