Sale 1159 — 2017 Rarities of the World
Sale Date — Tuesday, 27 June, 2017
Category — 1869 Pictorial Issue (Scott 112-122)
15c-90c 1869 Pictorial Inverts, Plate Proofs on Card (120aP4, 121aP4, 122aP4, 129aP4). Complete set of corner sheet-margin pairs, each with large to huge margins, from the bottom left corners of the plates and three showing edges of plate sinkage, brilliant colors, a couple small margin thin spots on 30c and 90c not affecting any of the designs, 15c with split at left edge, also far from the designs, which in all probability are the result of the removal of the sheets from the mounting frames after the Atlanta Cotton Exposition (it would seem that the sheets were mounted by spot gluing at the four corners)EXTREMELY FINE. A RARE AND BEAUTIFUL SET OF CORNER-MARGIN PAIRS OF THE 1869 PICTORIAL ISSUE INVERT PLATE PROOFS ON CARD.
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 into top and bottom plate blocks of eight (only one set remains fully intact), two sets of blocks of four (or possibly three), a few pairs and singles. Klemann retained blocks of 30 for future division but there is no record as to when those blocks were cut up.
This set of pairs was originally part of blocks of four. This is a rare opportunity to acquire a beautiful set of pairs from the key corner positions.
Scott Retail as singles
