This is, to the best of our knowledge, the best collection of Canadian stamps ever offered for sale at auction. We say this based on a review of the four auction catalogues used for the sales that took place in New York, conducted by H.R. Harmer Inc., between 1968 and 1970.

Louise Dale & Alfred Lichtenstein

We knew little of these two individuals and so were pleased to find the following description on the site of the Philatelic Foundation of New York. We quote from that source as follows:

“Already a stamp collector with a major collection, on the death of her father, Alfred F. Lichtenstein (1876-1947), the Vassar-educated Louise Boyd Dale (1913-1967) inherited her father's world class collection. One should recall, however, that in the 1940's philately was almost exclusively a "For Men Only" fraternity. This did not deter the daughter of the great philatelist. She energetically continued to build upon the great collection. Not content to rest upon her father's philatelic laurels, she became a major philatelist in her own right. She greatly expanded the U.S. area of the collection, and many of the choice U.S. items from the April 19, 1989 auction of Harmers of New York, like the unique imperforate pairs of the 1875 Government Reprints of the 1857 issue, were her acquisitions. She also immersed herself in philatelic scholarship and research, and she presented lectures at the Collectors Club, most notably on "The Bordeaux Issues of France”.

Here are some of the best examples from this collection. Please excuse the quality of some of the images. The black and white ones reflect the originals in the catalogue that were not very clear. Most of the colour images come from later auctions of material from this sale that we were able to find. We would once again like to thank Messrs. Cimon Morin and Michel Guénette of the Canadian Postal Archives in Ottawa for providing us with the prices from this auction. All prices are in $US.

Highlights of the Sale

12 Pence Black

General Comments

What can one possibly say about a collection of the scope and magnitude of this one?  We expect to be coming back to it again and again as a reference point.  We wish we could go on showing more.  It is hard to believe we only came across the catalogues from these four auctions by chance when glancing through Eastern’s June, 2007 auction catalogue.  Thank goodness this valuable philatelic material is still around so that it can be shared. Lucky us!

Over the years, collectors who have acquired stamps from the Dale Lichtenstein collections have been very proud to own them.  When they subsequently sell them, the opportunity to say that a stamp is ex Dale Lichtenstein means everything and well it should.  It means it comes from one of the best collections of BNA ever assembled!