Announcing Sale 26

Welcome to our January 2018 sale!

This is an exciting time here at Sparks Auctions, especially since our memorable September 2017 sale, where we once again realized several world record prices, including the highest price ever paid for a Canadian stamp, $327,750 for a lovely mint 12d Queen Victoria. This sale will continue to offer a good variety of quality material, and for all collecting interests and budgets. We are proud to have been entrusted with several high quality collections.

The Canada and BNA section is full of lovely material, with probably the most high quality stamps we have offered yet in a single sale, as well as a very wide range of Unitrade listed items. Readers will also notice that a great number of lots in this section are offered with certificates. Of note are many fresh and mint never hinged stamps in singles, blocks of four, plate blocks as well as complete sheets.

We have the honour of offering a unique collection of Prince Edward Island stamps, which won the Grand Award at the 1957 National Exhibition in Ottawa, the Grand Award at the 1956 BNAPEX and which had been put away since 1964. You will find in it many rare and not often offered or seen material.

Our popular Canada and Worldwide lots and collections section yet again offers a good selection of different country collections, in albums, stockbooks, dealer stock, and more. Of note are some strong Netherlands collections, Nepal collectors will find a specialized selection of early sheets in 12 lots, especially the half anna issues, ex. Ken Kershaw. We also have a strong offering of very useful Canadian postage lots, including many self-adhesives, high values and “P” values.

The print catalogues will be mailed by year’s end, in plenty of time to reach subscribers. Here on our site we will be featuring interesting items from the sale, as well as listing any corrections or clarifications that come to light.

Lot 1203 — Nepal #10, 10a with postmark of Sawari Hunting Camp, Realized $522

Nepal #10, 10aLot 1203 Nepal #10, 10a 1906 Half anna black with very rare postmark This strip of 3 comes from the rare setting 5 and can be positively identified as clichés 5, 6 and 7. Cliché 6 is inverted and cliché 7 has the flattened base. The strip has an almost complete strike of the Sawari Hunting Camp used during King George V’s visit to Nepal in 1911. Illustrated in Singer’s Nepal. Est $500, $475 hammer.

Lot 1204 — Nepal Half Anna red orange unused block of 24 with invert pair

We begin our auction highlights with the catalogue cover item, a true rarity and showpiece.

Nepal #11, 11aLot 1204 Nepal #11, 11a 1917 Half Anna red orange unused block of 24 with invert pair, 6th Setting with Dr. W.C. Hellrigl 2004 certificate to quote “ imperforate on medium native paper, unused block of 24 from the upper left corner of the sheet (pos 1-6, 9-14, 17-22, 25-30), with an inverted cliché on pos 6…This is the second largest unused multiple of this stamp, the largest being a half sheet of 32. All unused copies derive from the two sheets. The multiple described here is ex Heddergott collection…The multiple is in fine condition. The right foxing spots in the margin are typical of this issue and they occur on all other multiples cut from the two known sheets…genuine in all respects.” The block of 32, referred to in the certificate, was sold by Robson Lowe in 1967 and has not been seen since. This block sold in the Heddergott sale in 1980. This block has two vertical creases. One is between the third and fourth row, the other is a pre-printing crease through the fourth row. Mint tête-bêche pairs of this stamp are unpriced and are world-class rarities, Hellrigl: “The total number of tête-bêche pairs known amounts to less than one dozen, the majority being used. Scott catalogue value is for 24 singles with the invert pair at twice two singles. Scott CV$49,000.

The Ken Kershaw Collection Of Nepal & Tibet

As a schoolboy Ken Kershaw was able to demonstrate an encyclopedic knowledge of all British flora. His scholarship and phenomenal memory served him well in his academic career. Field trips around the world, and especially in the Arctic, led to his publications on lichens which have set a scholarly gold standard.

After early retirement his natural curiosity and training in study and classification served him well as an entrepreneur and later as a restaurateur.

Sparks Auction #10 - Kershaw CollectionA return to his boyhood hobby has resulted in about a dozen research books, notably the five volume study of Canada’s Three Penny Beaver. Ken is intrigued by difficult philatelic problems. He enjoys the challenge of first identifying and then confirming a plating study. Nepal and Tibet introduced the problem of confirming printing flaws as constant, progressive, or non-constant. To do this he obtained as many large blocks and sheets from as many settings as was practical. Although Ken is still working with the pashupati issues the time has come to move on to other pursuits.

NOTES ON THIS AUCTION

Sparks #10 Tibet Nepal

Especially in the case of Nepal, the native laid paper has characteristic inclusions and lack of uniformity such that there may be no stamp in existence that merits the most exacting quality standards of some collectors. We have tried to describe all faults which occurred after manufacture as well as the grossest of the faults during manufacture of this paper. A grade of very fine was used when it occurred to us that a particular sheet or block had better than normal overall appearance.

Nepal is organized by denomination. Tibet is organized by Scott number. We refer to tete-beche stamps as inverts, a term which is more commonly used in the literature of the “Himals.”

Ken’s unpublished five-volume study THE HALF ANNA ISSUES OF NEPAL consists of more than twelve hundred pages of careful documentation of the Nepal issues. These books can be downloaded below and then read on your computer, eReader, or tablet device.

VOLUME I: The settings, definitive flaws, and plating criteria (11MB)
VOLUME II: Plating the flaws in the spandrels and central oval frame (30MB)
VOLUME III: Plating the frame flaws (19MB)
VOLUME IV: Plating the flaws in the central oval (10MB)
VOLUME V: Plating the flaws correlated with the double Khukris (15MB)