Montreal Madness

Friday was a long and cold day.

It started with a dental appointment then a drive to Montreal. I went to look at a large collection. It was quite unlike most collections I usually see.

First a few words about my vehicle - 13 years old nearly 300,000 kilometres - the engine and running parts should be good for some time to come. My Ford Explorer has never complained about weight and its capacity is 43 Archive boxes. I've learned how to pack so as to maximize the available space. Nevertheless I was concerned that I would not have enough room for the collection. Also this was likely to be the last major haul for the Ford because rust on the car and also on me (a painful hip because of the position of my right leg when driving) necessitate a new vehicle.

To get back to the stamps. I spent several hours going through what was (for the most part) very nice quality stamps contained in about 200 volumes and miscellaneous boxes. One group of four "red boxes" contained thousands of lovely fresh French Colonies stamps and varieties with a retail value of more than $20,000. What was unusual is that the value of the Canada, USA, Great Britain, France, Benelux, Scandanavia combined was perhaps one percent of the total value of the collection. The value of Germany, Italy, Spain, the rest of Europe, and most of Africa except French Colonies would be measured in the single digits as a percent of the total value.

How can it be, you might ask, that one can buy a vast accumulation of fresh, mostly modern, mostly never hinged collections without these countries. The answer: Latin America, the Caribbean, Central America, Indonesia and several Asian countries. Best is a collection of Colombia in five volumes.

In addition to this massive group there was a major collection of fish and marine life. Wow, this collection really impressed me. It must be very nearly complete for all sets of the world up to a value of about $500; and apparently the only hinged stamps are few pre-World War II issues which the collector never found in never hinged condition. It took about 30 years to assemble. We can probably help fill almost any want list in this topic (it includes shells - and has many non-Scott listed varieties).

I did the arithmetic and made my best offer. It was accepted... and now to continue the loading story...

Usually I like to pack albums into boxes for transporting. It turned out to be fortuitous that there were no boxes. No matter how carefully one packs boxes there is always wasted space. if I had used boxes there would not have been room for everything. Instead each volume was carefully arranged in the back cargo area so as not to waste ANY space. This winter the weather has been kind for the most part - but Friday it was about MINUS 25 degrees. Eventually it was all packed and I headed back to Ottawa.

We're going to have fun with this impressive collection. We hope our customers appreciate it as much as we do.

Why the title of Montreal Madness. Part of the collection includes cartons of commercial covers and cartons of stamps which are loose, or on album pages etc. We have been packing these in cartons and boxes priced from about $25 and up. Each has a label reading MONTREAL MADNESS. Currently we have fifteen of these lots. I will try to double that quantity before I leave today.

Ian Kimmerly

Missing Year of the Pig

The lunar New Year of the Pig has produced some excitement for us.

Below is the pane of 25 stamps. Five stamps in the right hand column are partially showing the grey rainbow foiling. The missing silver rainbow foil is a more subtle difference. It can be seen on the non-error stamps most easily in the lowest Chrysanthemum flower on the pig's belly and especially on top of the gray colour which outlines the pig. (Click on the stamp to see a larger scan.) The silver foil is used to highlight or to give a "rainbow" effect to the outline of the pig. The remaining twenty are mostly or completely missing the silver rainbow foil. In printing terms this is an enhancement.


Most importantly all of the stamps are missing the gold foil. In the one pane there is a striking and unusual error of two missing enhancements to the stamp image! This is very likely the first time a double enhancement has been missing from a Canadian stamp.


Thus we have two different missing colour varieties on one pane of stamps.

Our price for any single is $995 with any multiples, including imprint blocks (or strips of five) pro-rata.

It's been a busy week and I'll try to catch up with some of the new additions later in this week.

Ian Kimmerly

Fancy Cancels

Here we show two lovely stamps with fancy coloured postmarks. First up is a ten pence Cartier (Scott #7) on piece with a light red "tombstone" postmark reading PKT PAID/ LIVERPOOL/ JY 6/ 1856. The stamp is cut close and just into the design at left which results in a resanable price of $900.
Second is a seven and a halfpenny with four margins but a corner crease. It is graced by a bright red BY CANADIAN/ PACKET postmark and; unfortunately, sold almost immediately.

Our BIG news is that we have picked up enough cartons to nearly fill a cube van (10 feet by seven feet by three to four feet high - in today's measurements at least 18 cubic metres) of commercial covers. Or think of it as about 200 cartons. They are mostly from the last 25 years; a good percentage are registered (including many AR); and a good percentage are foreign. We are selling them on behalf of the estate. Come in early for first chance at what is literally hundreds of thousands of covers.
... as we said BIG news. We have a work space in our ground floor dedicated to these.

Ian Kimmerly

German Booklets

Our post-Christmas sale kept everyone busy and now after a few days of catching up on sleep, phone calls, and emails, things are closer to normal. On Monday I looked at a huge collection in Montreal and prospects look good that I will be able to buy it. Today I purchased collections of classic Bulagaria, Austria, and Montenegro. The latter has over 120 stamps, is reasonably complete and has a catalogue value of approx. $250. In the firs (1874) issue it has #2 and #3 unused and #5 with o.g. the overall condition is fresh and fine or better. Price $150.


A collection purchased during the sale is of German booklets. We show a small sample. The current catalogue value of these was 13,330 euros (Canadian $20,261). We will sell out of the collection at a rate of $1/euro for small purchases or $.80/euro for larger purchases. Lot price was $7950, but we have sold approx. 500 euros for approx. $400 and will reduce the lot price by the amount sold.

Kate and Karen have been organizing boxes of mint stamps. One glassine marked $2.85 contained all but two values of the wildlife set from Burundi which now boasts a catalogue value in excess of $1000. That discovery will, hopefully, soon be good for the bank account but another discovery of a claret-coloured diamond shaped stamp from the "Canton de Geneve/Lettre de Voiture" was, to me, more exciting.

Ian Kimmerly