The second auction of
the Auction Galleries Hamburg vormals Schwanke GmbH offers a very fine select
with more than 3.100 single lots and over 2.100 collections. Among them are
many postal history items, specialities and uniques.
The strong offer Zepplin mail and Zepplin-Memorablila as well as booklets of the German Reich is especially worth mentioning. The highlights of this sale are three rarities from Great Britain:
A very special document is one page from the record book of Perkins
Bacon (200 x 315 mm) where both side show examples of the 1840 1d “Rainbow
trials” alongside with trials of the New South Wales Diadem lower value type in
different colours as well as from the New South Wales Diadem Sixpence. Highlight
is a proof of the Trinidad 1859 6d dreep green, which is a major rarity of
itself (Stanley Gibbons value for the unused item 12.000 GBP). Starting price 80,000
Euro.
No less spectacular is a bisect of the 1840 2d on a letter from the
Shetland Islands to Yell posted in 1842 (starting price 75,000 Euro) and one of the three known complete letters
with the experimental machine cancel of the Pearson Hill trials in 1857. This
letter bears a rose red 1d tied by the experimental double datestamp with code
“M” (morning duty) dated for SP 17 57. The letter bears a very clear mirror of
this cancel on the reverse. (starting price 5,000 Euro).
Italy, Switzerland and Scandinavia are well represented as usual.