Sale 1227 — Outstanding United States Stamps and Gold Coins
Sale Date — Monday-Friday, 19-23 October, 2020
Category — 1869 Pictorial Issue Inverts (Proofs, Scott 119b, 120b, 121b)
15c-90c 1869 Pictorial Inverts, Plate Proofs on Card (120aP4, 121aP4, 122aP4, 129aP4). Huge margins all around including bottom sheet margins (30c is the bottom if viewed with the Eagle and Shield inverted), bright colors and detailed impressionsEXTREMELY FINE. A PHENOMENAL SHEET-MARGIN SET OF THE 1869 PICTORIAL INVERT PLATE PROOFS. ONLY ONE SHEET OF 100 OF EACH WAS PRODUCED.
The card proof sheets of 100 of the four inverted high values of the 1869 Pictorial issue were prepared for and displayed at the Atlanta International Cotton Exposition in 1881. They were printed in response to the publicity surrounding the actual inverted stamps that began to appear in the 1870’s. The sheets were somehow acquired by James A. Petrie of Phillipsburg, New Jersey, at the close of the exposition. Petrie claimed that he rescued the inverts along with the trial color card proof sheets (the "Atlanta" trial color proofs) just before they were to be burned. For some years he tried to sell his find and in 1895 he began to advertise them in the philatelic press, finding no takers. In 1903 he sold them to James Ludovic Lindsay, the 26th Earl of Crawford, one of the great collectors of stamps, essays, proofs and philatelic literature at the turn of the 20th Century. In November 1915 the Earl of Crawford’s collection was purchased by John A. Klemann of the Nassau Stamp Company in New York. It was Klemann who eventually cut up the sheets.
15c Brown & Blue, Ty. II, Center Inverted (119b). Deep rich colors, neat strike of cork cancel, reperfed at top and rightVERY FINE APPEARING USED EXAMPLE OF THE 15-CENT 1869 PICTORIAL INVERT.
Our census of Scott 119b, available at our website at https://siegelauctions.com/census/us/scott/119b , records three unused and 102 used copies (there are an additional three used examples of Scott 119c). Two of the used copies are in institutions -- the Tapling Collection at the British Library and the Miller Collection at The New York Public Library.
Census no. 119b-CAN-102. With 2017 P.S.E. certificate
24c Green & Violet, Center Inverted (120b). Rich colors, unobtrusive cork cancel leaves the invert clearly visible, tiny tear, few clipped perfs at bottom, reperfed at topFINE APPEARING USED EXAMPLE OF THE 24-CENT 1869 PICTORIAL INVERT.
Our census of 24c 1869 Inverts, available at our website at https://siegelauctions.com/census/us/scott/120b , contains four unused, 83 used singles, one used pair, one on cover and the unique block of four, for a total of 94 copies of the perforated 24c Invert.
Census no. 120b-CAN-49. With 1985 P.F. and 2017 P.S.E. certificates
30c Ultramarine & Carmine, Flags Inverted (121b). Deep rich colors and detailed impressions, three wide margins, neat strike of New York circle of eight wedges cancel, single nibbed perforation at lower left which is very minor and noted as "slightly short" on certificateVERY FINE. A RARE USED EXAMPLE OF THE 30-CENT 1869 PICTORIAL ISSUE INVERT WITH WONDERFULLY RICH COLORS.
Our census of 30c 1869 Inverts, available at https://siegelauctions.com/census/us/scott/121b , contains a total of 47 stamps, including 7 unused and 40 used (one in the Miller Collection at The New York Public Library and one used in the Tapling Collection at the British Library). Perhaps ten used examples are confirmed as sound. Several have significant faults. The example offered here, with just a single slightly short perf, is essentially sound.
Census no. 121b-CAN-03. When this stamp was offered in our Sale 1192 in 2018, it was making its first appearance in the market since the 1941 Harmer, Rooke auction of the C. A. Brown collection. With 2018 P.F. certificate