90c Blue (39). Block of nine, original gum, few hinge remnants where minor perf separations sensibly reinforced, rich color and bright fresh paper, bottom left stamp has corner crease ending in small tear, same stamp and adjoining stamp at bottom center have small thin specks, two other lefthand stamps have faint diagonal gum crease

VERY FINE APPEARANCE. ONE OF THREE RECORDED ORIGINAL-GUM BLOCKS OF NINE OF THE 90-CENT 1860 ISSUE, WHICH IS THE LARGEST RECORDED MULTIPLE. A SPECTACULAR 19TH CENTURY UNITED STATES BLOCK.

The 90c stamp was issued in 1860, along with the 24c and 30c values, all of which were needed to prepay high international letter rates established by various postal treaties. When supplies of current postage stamps were declared invalid in the South and ultimately demonetized by the Federal government, the 90c had been in use for only one year. Most unused multiples probably come from supplies recovered from Southern post offices.

There are three recorded original-gum blocks of nine of the 90c 1860 Issue, which survive as the largest recorded multiples following the division of the Caspary block of 21. The Caspary block (lot 817 in the 1956 sale) comprised Positions 43-49/53-59/63-69R, and it was still intact when it was part of the B. D. Phillips collection, which the Weills acquired for $4.07 million in 1968. Sometime after 1968 this block was divided into a block of nine from the center, two blocks of four from the bottom left and bottom right corners, and singles or pairs from the top left and top right corners. The block of nine (Positions 45-47/65-67R) remains intact in an important East Coast collection, and it is the finest block known (the center horizontal row is Mint N.H.). The bottom left block of four (53-54/63-64R) from the Caspary block was sold in the 1993 Ishikawa auction and shortly thereafter broken into singles by a dealer (the top right stamp from this block is Mint N.H.). The bottom right block (58-59/68-69R) from the Caspary block was last sold by the Siegel firm in our auction of the Alan B. Whitman collection (lot 54, realized $95,000 hammer) and remains intact.

The second surviving block of nine (offered in lot 1026 of this sale) was also in the 1956 Caspary sale (lot 816), where it was acquired by the Weills for B. D. Phillips. It appeared in the Siegel 1969 Rarities of the World sale, the first Rarities sale following the Weills' acquisition of the Phillips collection (this sale contained an array of stellar pieces from the collection). In March 1987 the block surfaced in Switzerland at a Corinphila auction, where it was acquired by Peter G. DuPuy.

The third recorded block of nine is the block offered here. We have been unable to trace its pedigree beyond the 1976 Siegel auction of the Rudolf Wunderlich collection of 1851-57's (Sale 484, lot 346). This block was acquired by Mr. DuPuy in an April 2000 general sale held by Shreves.

Ex Wunderlich. Scott Retail as block of four, two pairs and a single

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