Missing stamps

Accordingly the government printer, John Ash, asked the Victorian Governor, Lord Huntingfield, to return a complete sheet of stamps he was given as a souvenir from his recent visit to the Note Printing Branch. When it was returned it was found that a block of six stamps had been removed from the lower right-hand corner.

Lord Huntingfield explained that he'd sent these to a titled friend in England who was a noted stamp collector. The PMG decided it was too hard to claim these back. "Given the circumstances they basically gave up," says Weller.



The missing block of six first appeared in the public domain at a Melbourne exhibition in 1996, then again in October 2014 at the sale of the Lord Vestey collection in London.

The current vendor, who remains anonymous, decided to subdivide his asset by removing the two left hand stamps. One was sold here last year for $170,000, claimed as the record price for any single stamp sold at auction in Australia.

The second one to be sold by Mossgreen this month comes with an estimate of $120,000 which Weller admits is conservative. He's hopeful that the second in the series will break the previous record despite a minor flaw in the printing process. "All six are somewhat off-centre" he notes.

Modern stamps may be a threatened species these day but rare and unusual examples have increased in value over the past few decades, along with other blue-chip collectables like coins, banknotes, jewellery and classic cars. Some say these have given better returns than the stock market.

International interest in Australian stamps peaked in February 2007 when Australian collector Arthur Gray sold his massive collection of Kangaroo stamps through Shreves auction house in New York. The 849 lots achieved a total of $7.158 million, the highest ever achieved for a single stamp issue. This record still stands.

The sale of the un-issued King Edward VIII stamp takes place at Mossgreen auctions in Melbourne on June 26.