Postage Stamp Chat Board & Stamp Bulletin Board Forum
 

It gives us great pleasure to present to you the second tranche of the impressive Stuart Hardy Commonwealth of Australia Collection.

This Auction covers the Kangaroo and Map Issues and is anticipated to be the largest sale of Australian stamps held in Australia.

Stuart was very fond of large blocks and these are a prominent feature of his collection, most well known is of course a Block of 24 of the Small Mult wmk £2 Kangaroo, this was originally a pane of 60 bought by Ken Baker who onsold the bottom 36 to Stuart for £1,080.

Along with his large blocks are many monogram and imprint blocks with such gems as the unique 1d Roo wmk sideways No Monogram block of 6, the exceptionally rare Small Mult wmk £2 Imprint block of 4 (only 2 are known to be in private hands), and what is believed to be the only 1st wmk 2/- ‘JBC’ strip of 3. Used monograms and imprints are generally very rare and many feature in this collection with the used 3rd wmk 2/- perf ‘OS’ ‘JBC’ monogram block of 12 being a stand-out item.

Stuart considered his unique mint 3rd wmk £1 chestnut & blue perf ‘OS’ sideways wmk to be the best item in his collection. There is also a rather nice 3rd wmk £1 chestnut & blue inverted wmk block of 4 and a couple of proofs in his collection however the £2 plate proof in purple (2 exist in private hands) has pride of place in his Roos collection. There are many ‘Specimens’ throughout and the 10/-, £1 & £2 ‘JBC’ monogram singles with ‘Specimen’ handstamps are quite special.

Kangaroos were his major love and Stuart did a massive amount of work in plating the bi-colour Roos, as consequence there are large numbers of these in his collection.

This Auction will be held at the RACV Club, 501 Bourke Street Melbourne, Australia on Thursday 9th May in their 2nd Floor Function Rooms, commencing at 9:00am. Lots may be collected from the Phoenix Auctions offices at Level 2, 170 Queen Street at the conclusion of the auction.

Thursday 9th May is the day before the World Philatelic Exhibition opens at the Exhibition Buildings. We hope that all those attending the auction will be able to visit this magnificent Exhibition.

Catalogues for Auction No.20 have been mailed out, if you haven't previously received one, a request can be made via our website.

Once again we have put 'eCats' on our website to make viewing the online catalogue much easier for you. From the eCats you can print individual pages and also perform word searches. ( Please note you cannot place bids via the eCats, they are for viewing purposes only! )

Bidding has commenced, and with live online bidding, placing your bids online is the best way to go! If you happen to experience any difficulties don't hesitate to contact us and we'll help you sort it out.

We're sure you'll enjoy the material contained in this auction and look forward to your active participation.

_________________
Phoenix Auctions
http://www.PhoenixAuctions.com.au

A final reminder that this auction is on THURSDAY 9th MAY at the RACV Club, commencing at 9:00am.

Full details appear on our website.

_________________
Phoenix Auctions
http://www.PhoenixAuctions.com.au

An amazing Auction, and well done to all those involved in describing and cataloging it.

My gut feeling is the $A2 million mark will be around the invoiced figure, and that will pretty much double the previous highest stamp Audion of any kind held in Australia.

EVERY lot sold (unheard of in this country) and total invoices were $2,587,000 - way more than DOUBLING any stamp Auction ever held here.

My personal bids, that were the highest bids before the auction started totalled about $A350,000.

Sadly I did not win much of what I liked. But my bid was the opening one, for the £2 Roo part sheet!

I took the view this is the last great original collection that exists of Kangaroos, and I very much wanted to own part of it.

I bought some totally unique pieces like this, for $22,500, that in my view are still priced very low for something no other examples exist of.



The other strength of a collection like Hardy - formed 50+ years ago mostly, is that that it lends impeccable PROVENANCE to the material.

This set nearby of 1913 First Watermark "OS NSW" Officials was typed up by Stuart Hardy on his album page around the WW2 era, as can be seen.

Fakers have been active in such areas in modern times, and the fakes are not easy to pick by collectors and even for dealers are tough.

This set to £2 is therefore totally genuine, as perfins back then were worth far less than non perfin stamps, and at only $A8,750 or so, was one of the buys of the sale in my view.

I am biased of course - as I was the fortunate buyer.

To see this set get $15,000-$20,000 would not have surprised me at all, as a single "OS" used £2 of this watermark was invoiced for near $A50,000 in the same sale, and several of those exist.

The standard non-perfin stamps are listed in the ACSC at about $17,500, and OS perfins are listed at several times that.

Indeed mint copies of either large or small 1913 "OS" £2 alone are each $50,000, and the 10/- and £1 are $20,000+.

Hence the interest fakers have taken in recent times. 50 years back, the OS were a fraction of formal mint.

The "OS NSW" perfins are less numerous still, and only a few sets mint still exist.

This "OS NSW" lot was offered right at the very start of the auction, and the tone of the record breaking prices to come was not yet evident to anyone.

I sat through both days of the Arthur Gray Kangaroos sale in New York and the same thing occurred.

Many of the first 50 lots were to me the bargains of the sale. Everyone was a little cautious and conservative, until an overall pattern emerged.

I was only successful on two of my three bids.

Went on the website this morning only to find the majority of all scans were removed from the lot descriptions. I was curious about the realization of two 1/- Roo multiples.

Hopefully the family or Phoenix will produce & sell a CD of all the scans.

_________________
------------------------------------------
Anyone else accumulating NWPI material for research?

Two from three sounds good to me! I stayed up much of the night in the UK to bid live on a few items with no success, even though I was happy to bid well above the new ACSC (very painful given the current strength of the AUS$). Some simply astounding prices.

It would be great to see the full catalogue kept available on line somehow.

All the best

Paul_S

As most would be aware by now the HARDY Kangaroo Auction on 9th May set all sorts of records.

The room was packed with bidders including quite a number of interstate and overseas bidders. The end result was a fantastic 100% clearance achieving total realisations of over $2,587,000 against pre-sale estimates of $1,324,000. This smashes the previous record for any philatelic auction held in Australia by quite a large margin.

There were many mind-blowing results and three lots highlight how staggering the auction was. Lot 520, the £2 block of 24, which was estimated at $100,000, realised $227,175. Lot 446, the unique mint £1 Sideways Watermark, was estimated at $40,000 and realised $233,000, a world record for a single Australian stamp. Lot 266, the used 2½d with the Missing 1 in Fraction sold for a shattering $53,590, almost double the previous record for the sale of this stamp.

And it wasn’t just the big ticket items that sold well many smaller-valued lots sold for multiples of their estimates, in fact several sold for over five times the estimates.

It was a great day for us being the culmination of months of hard work, our vendors the Hardy Family were ecstatic and those in the room had many moments which will be remembered for a long time!

And the next day Australia 2013 commenced! We’d like thank all the Stampboards members who came to see us over the six day and we’d also like to congratulate all those involved in Australia 2013 for bringing us a truly magnificent exhibition.

_________________
Phoenix Auctions
http://www.PhoenixAuctions.com.au