Canadian Stamp Auctions

Many years ago we bought a $5 Jubilee which was one of the gems of our collection. It was perfectly centered and NH. But, when we came to sell it, we were told it was regummed. The experience was burned in our memory. It made us realize how important it was to only deal with the most reliable dealers and action houses.

Two examples of this were shown in the most recent Eastern auction when several stamps were described as “likely reperfed” or “likely regummed”. These stamps were very properly described. But, once described, we wondered if these stamps would attract any sort of a decent price.
Here they are, and the prices were higher than we expected:

“Likely regummed” Fine, mint	“Likely reperfed” VG-F, OG
Lot 495 Scott 14 Catalogue $300 Realized $130	Lot 505 Scott 16 Estimate $4,700 Realized $2,100

Scott 41 – Extraordinary Margins

This is a very common stamp from the Small Queen set with a fairly heavy cancel. It has a number of short perforations on the top and bottom, but what extraordinary margins, a true gem. It has a Scott catalogue value of 75¢. Eastern put an estimate of $50 on it and it went for $46. That’s a pretty good price.

There are lots of Small Queens with one or more large borders, but to find one with 4 large borders as evenly balanced as this is unusual.

Modern Imperforate - partial view only

This strip of 3 of the 49¢ Delicious Apple comes from the definitive set which was in use between 1987 and 1991. A number of stamps in the set have found their way into the market in imperforate form and trade regularly. Many were cut into like the above, which supports the likelihood that they are printer's waste.

Scott lists only one of the imperforate pairs from the set. Unitrade lists them all….for example see Unitrade 1363i, 1367i, 1368i etc.

We guess that the type of collector who would be interested in the above strip would be someone who is specializing in the set and wanted something unusual at a modest cost to add to its completion.

Canada Press Sheets

Three press sheets were offered in the sale, two of which sold:

Both of the above sheets were signed and numbered by the artist.

Canada Yearbooks

Eastern wrote “Each year since 1974, Canada has produced an Annual Yearbook. Available in time for Christmas giving, these beautifully produced books contain a wealth of technical and artistic information about the reasons the stamps were issued, the artists involved and the designs. No collection of Canada is complete without these highly popular collections.”

Here’s how a number of the Yearbooks did:

The above figures work out to 55% of catalogue on average. This reflects the fact that there is not much demand for these yearbooks at present.

Eastern has two sales coming up in January:
January 20, 2010 Mail Auction
January 23, 2010 Public Auction