2019-04-25 Thu

Charles F. Shreve and Tracy L. Carey along with Robert A. Siegel Auction Galleries will be offering interesting philatelic material from the William H. Gross collection of the US stamps on 8th and 9th May at the Collectors Club, 22 E. 35th St., New York City.

One of the highlights is a sheet of 12 grey-black Providence, R.I., postmaster’s provisional stamps issued in 1846 in mint never-hinged condition, along with an unused sheet margin block of four 5¢ Benjamin Franklin dark brown stamps issued in 1847, and a strip of eight 5¢ Benjamin Franklin orange-brown stamps issued in 1847.

The block of 1¢ 1857 stamps from Plate 2 has original-gum. Only two examples of the Position 99R2 stamp exist today in perforated form. The offered block contains the finer of the two existing examples. Type III 1¢ blue Benjamin Franklin stamp is different from the other 1¢ blue type III stamps. The offered item has a listed market value of $110,000. However, this value hasn’t changed since 1994 and it’s difficult to value these stamps accurately. The item was owned by several great collectors like Alfred H. Caspary, Josiah K. Lilly Jr., Louis Grunin, Ryohei Ishikawa, Robert Zoellner, and William H. Gross.

Another interesting offering is the $5 black Columbian stamp in a unique top plate block of six, with five never-hinged stamps while the bottom-right stamp is barely hinged. The item has a listed market value of $290,000.

It is the second auction in a series of four. The first one was held on 3rd October 2018 along with United States Treasures sale. Over $10 million was made in one day. Like last time, money earned through the auction would be donated to charitable organisations.

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Image Courtesy: Robert A. Siegel Auction Galleries