Welcome Letter
ACE STAMP AUCTIONS SALE No. 19
Saturday 20th February 11am Coins & Banknotes
2.00pm Box lots, World & Australian Collections, Thematics & Airmails
Sunday 21st 10.30am WA collections, stamps, postmarks & postcards
1pm Australia, States & Territories, Great Britain & single Country lots
University of WA, Guild Function Centre, Hackett Drive, Crawley
Auctioneers: Sam Mannino, Rob Mandanici, Mike McAndrew & Trevor Lacy
Dear Collector
Happy New Year and welcome to our first auction for 2016. We have broken another record with this sale by having over 100 vendors resulting in a stunning range and depth of material. At 2620 lots and over 110,000 words you are guaranteed of a great read and surely the temptation to bid!
We would also like to welcome those clients of Sel Pfeffers from Boonah Stamp Supplies in Queensland, who may be receiving this catalogue for the first time. In November Sel and I completed the sale of his business to me and the final stage of his transition into retirement! One of the true gentleman in the trade and a pleasure to do business with, I reminded him that through a Frama deal in 1989, he paid for my London airfare to begin work at Stanley Gibbons.
We were privileged to have the Vince Brown Airmail collection to auction in August last year, material that had lain untouched for over 40 years. It generated a lot of excitement in the aerophilatelic community with bids from around the world. We now have pleasure in not only presenting more of this wonderful collection but also the Australian kangaroo, KGV and pre-decimal elements of Vince's collection. This includes the amazing block of 8 of the 1913 £2 kangaroo fiscally used but thought to be the largest known used multiple (lot 1479) and most attractive in its usage. Also the rarely seen 1931 3d Kingsford Smith "OS" plate block (lot 1657), another gem tucked away for all these years. We also discovered only the fourth KGVI PTPO envelope, Type I, and the only one dated 1947. (lot 1775)
A strong section of WA swans, postal history and postmarks compliments the sale (look to your left!) with the confirmation of a void grid postmarker used at Irwin in 1868 (see lot 1219). We also see local philatelic history in the form of Bishop Riley's original stamp collection handed down to the Bussell family (lot 520).
The Great Britain section once again shines with lovely Queen Victoria high values and some interesting surface printed use on cover. The GB collections are also worthy of careful consideration.
However for the true collector wanting to return to the roots of the hobby, nothing beats delving into the 650+ collections, box lots and accumulations. Many of these may have the unknown gems that only the collector with the patience and knowledge will discover!
You will also notice that the coin section features the rare 1930 Penny, the key date and highly sought after (lot 15) plus a gorgeous selection of the 1887-1893 Sydney and Melbourne minted gold sovereigns. (lot 2)
As always our sale would be nothing without the vendors, so a huge thankyou for entrusting us with your material. Over half of the vendors are returning with further lots, so our low buyer's premium of only 12.5%, the lowest of any public stamp auction house in Australia, the prompt 3 week payout after sale and the detailed descriptions are bringing in the results. So please do consider us in the future when selling as we have an almost consistent 80% sale rate, over 250 successful postal bidders and over 100 collectors bidding in the room.
My sincere thanks to John McPhee and Trevor Lacy for their assistance in describing and the efforts of Janene, Gemma, Damon and Dave for their help in collating the sale. We are also privileged to have 4 auctioneers for this sale over the 2 days and my thanks to them all, each bringing their own unique style and expertise to the auction room.
Finally to Christine, my wife, whose ongoing support is pivotal to the success of Ace, my true appreciation at allowing our Christmas to be ruled by stamps!
Happy bidding!
Ian Boulton