Canadian Stamp Auctions

29 August, 2007 - Vance Auctions Ltd.

This sale had over 7000 lots and a large proportion of them had images. It boggles the mind to think of all work this entails. As usual with a Vance sale, the results made it all worthwhile. We were more than surprised with the results in this first lot:

Inland Revenue War Tax Overprints

Lot 5824 Unitrade MR2Bi – MR2Ci Catalogue $990 Realized $4,900

How could the price be so high for these three stamps that have the catalogue value of only $990? We contacted Vance about this and were told that bidding on the above lot has been very aggresive. With six bidders placing bids of $3,000 or more. This set, in top condition, is very hard to find and there is sufficient demand to suggest that it is undervalued in the catalogue.

Scott 1 – Canada’s first stamp

This was a very nice copy of Canada’s first stamp with three large margins and a light cancel. The price realized was surprisingly strong as copies of the stamp regularly sell for under $1,000 and, in fact, often sell for under $500 if only in fair condition.

Scott 8 – a Lovely Pair

Lot 4984 Scott 8 Catalogue $1,200 Realized $1,420

You can tell that, back into 1857, whoever cut the stamp out of the sheet at the post office wasn’t thinking of collectors. Look at the way the bottom margin is cut. This is the only thing that is not wonderful about this pair. These stamps come from the collection of Art Leggett who, for many years, was a well known Canadian dealer, very active in the Toronto stamp community.

Scott 23a – the deep orange colour variety

Lot 5067 Scott 23a Catalogue $1,500 Realized $1,365

What a gorgeous stamp, with perfect centering and deep rich colour! The only problem is that it had no gum. Still, for a stamp in this condition, it generated a strong price.

We have recorded the sale of ten copies of Scott 23a in the past twenty years. Of these, five had no gum. Of those five, the above $1,365 is the best price realized.

Scott 29 – “ beautifully” dated

Lot 5104 Scott 29 Estimate $100 Realized $236

We always pay attention to dated copies of stamps. But we must admit this one did not strike us as exactly beautiful. It has been very heavily cancelled with a “squared circle” cancellation. This is a specialized area of collecting of which we have little knowledge, so it came as a surprise to us that the stamp did so well. It has a catalogue value of $40. Vance put in estimate of $100 on it and it sold for $236, or double its estimate. Not bad at all.

It is interesting that this 15¢ Large Queen was still being used as late as 1895, because this is well into the Small Queen era which began in 1870. This probably can be explained by the fact that there never was a 15¢ Small Queen so that the 15¢ Large Queen continued to be used.

Scott 81 - 7¢ Numeral

Lot 5289 Scott 81 Catalogue $230 Realized $710

Vance describes this one in his action catalogue as “gorgeous 7¢ QV Numeral with fresh yellow colour. Perfect centering XF, immaculate NH gum.” We agree and were certain that a copy like this in today’s market would test all previous record prices. But to our surprise, we discovered that a copy sold in 2002 for $750, so this had to settle as second best price.

This was the first 7¢ stamp issued by Canada. We wondered why and discovered in Howes’ “ Canadian Postage Stamps and Stationery” that in 1902, a new 7¢ stamp had to be issued to take the place of the 8¢ stamp after the reduction of the domestic postage.

Bluenose and Parliament Imperforates – Strong Prices!

Lot 5491 Unitrade 159c Catalogue $2700 Realized $3650

The strong results for these imperforates came as a nice surprise for us. A look at the prices for these stamps in the last five years clearly shows an improving trend, but not to the extent that occurred in this sale. In the sale, 6 imperforate pairs or blocks were offered of Scott 158a and159a. 5 of these resulted in record prices. It will be interesting to see how this affects future sale prices.

For further details of this sale, please click on the highlights button.

This sale had 6 new record prices: