The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, January 12, 1902, Page 14

EREE THOUSAND EIGHT HUN- DRED DOLLARS for one postage stamp! It sounds rather expensiv. doesn’t it? Methinks I sce the lady in the rural district who may chance to read *he first sentence of this article putting her specs a little farther back and exclaiming that it can’t be pos sible that “stamps hev riz sc.” But o course she does not know that this valu- ation is put in the eyes of pLilatelists is rarest of stamps —a £t. Lou mp—and worth its thousands acco . That was the opinion of Henry J. Crocker when he succeeded in geitin; two of these rarities to add to his ¢ lection, which stands seventh among the world, and Which amous ‘one_amo C 2 - rocke; many handsome books of sta: are e timated to be worth two hunared thou- sand dollars in_their entirety, and his collection of Hawalian stamps is the finest in the world and has not been ap- pr ed in point of rarity or value. T tinest ection of stamps on the globe is that rrari of Paris, the second best is the coliection, now € s! E then follow i collections of Beitf . Schroeder and of San Fra re in the t v acuve Evrope has legiors, among tioned ' Queen W Alfred de Roth, everal books on tt of Marlborough Emanpuel, and g Edward’s eldest s e Duke of York. The recent -exhibitions of the Boston ; the Duche lute Vie MEDAL AWARDED MR.CROCKER FROM and New York philatelic associations, at which Mr. Crocker was awarded the go al for the best exhibit o > hur ed stamps, have been ewing interest, much s orecedented exhibits on the part of .t many interested in this iad or indu whiciever 1t may be calleq, in the in st of which are issued more journals ar periodicals than any ness or art can bo: superb Hawaiian drst medal at exhibitio away first prize, a silver exhibit of thg Boston Philatelic in September, 191, in the f aid by experts to be ¢ dtlecti exhibition of Hawa seen in th world. Mr beautiful gold medal from the Chica ilatelic Soclety, 0 the tribute c pelled by his $25,000 worih of Hawa stam Mr. Crocker recently sent for bibition at the exhibit of the M ew Y Philatel Association two hundred of choicest and rarest stamp: divide into used and unused, and reaching a valua. tion of nearly forty thousand doll There is 1 doubt that the : of pleasant hobt oro; ven nd ector a keener renewing his carried medal, at the s in - history , has grown wonderfully e ears. There are many Yisco who are making the - - few 3 San Fr. collecting and among Will'am H. Croc H. Webber, eenebaum, Pt wan, Koenig, Imann and and Iip=. ~ Monteagle, Timotky Hop- Wilicox, Frederick <ins. One of the rarest and pretti n the Crocker esllection, sents much search_and expenditur ‘he Crocker for the past hirty is the first postage stamp >ver issued, the jssuahce of which t lace on May 1. 1840. These 1y Englis stamps are verv handsome and perfect specimens of engraving. They have an honorable: positicn in the large hook filled with the stamps of Great Britain and her American provinces, making a sollection alone worth $35.000. The plate numbers or engravers’ marks of the Eng- lish stamps alone form a study, so min- uste are they. and =o cleverly hidden among the larger designs of the margm >f the stamp. A block+of four sixpenny Canadian stamps, unused and in mint condition, Is gazed at with envious eves as a rarity unknown in any other llection. An- other page consists of Canadian sixpenny and twelvepenny black unused. The Aus. tralian and British colony stamps shown are worth $2 . Of these the “Connell” stamp is one of the most interesting, from the quaint bit of human vani nd his- tory connected with it. It js a stamp of New Brunswick, but unlike its con- temporaries in that it does not bear the engraved head of the Queen. Instead there is the portrait of a somewhat sheep- Ish looking gentleman, with retreating whiskers and a general “Oom Paul” air, And thereby hangs the vanity. The gen- tleman is Charles Connell of Woodstock, N. B. Postmaster General at the time these stamps were issued. He thought it would be a pleasant change to sec his own face on the stamps and at the same time relieve her Majesty, so he had the change made. The issue of these 5-cent stamps was suppressed almost as soon as It was finished. and the gallant Connell lost his berth and salary of six hundred pounds a year, or as an old poem has it: Sax hundred pounds to see his face, Posting around from place to place. But fame has at least a place for him, as stamp collectors are eager to buy his stamp pictures at $2 each. As an example of the error stamp, it stamps which repre- THE SUNDAY CALL .CROCKERS | CICENT REVERSE OF CHICAGO PHILATELIC SOCIETY MEDAL 1p contatning some unin- peculiarity and issued for use aition, m 4 ern Australia twopenny stamps in Mr. Crocier's collecticn, valued at $75 each. These twopenny stamps were printed the wroag color in London and were sent out to Australia as sixpenny stamps. But there the public discovered the crror and wouid pa but twopence for them when purch g them at the Postoffice. The only way the Postmaster could get even on the deal was to send them to out- ide dealers sending in orders for stamps s sixpenny stamps, and charging accor: 3 ptian stamp is one on which the overprint reads ten paras, when it should have been five. Oniy a very few of these are known. One dozen little squares of paper in Mr. collection will catalogue in This dozen represents stamps oundland, New Brunswick and s one stamp yet missing from Mr. Crocker’s unrivaled collection of Ha- caiis v one out of over 100 different varieties that have beén issued in Hawaif altogether. This is ome of the early ‘‘missionary” 2-cent stamps, which, when discovered, will be wortn at least $3000 to any collector. Mr. Crocker has ten of the early 5 and 13 cent missionary stamps, and also shows eleven plates of the Ha- waifan numerals, now exceedingly rare A number of the missionary s appear on the original letter as ere sent, and range in value from $1000, up to $1500 each. They are given the special care of being covered by glass slipped into the page. Some of the stamps were printed and distributed by the Ha- ‘walian Government by favor; others were from surcharged issues. The issues down to the time of the revolution of 1892 ail bear portraits of the sovereigns during whose reigns they were used, or of mem- bers of the royal family closely con- nected with the stccession. The stamp bearing a portrait statue of Kamehame- ha I, whose reign ended about the begin- ning of the last century, is an exception to_this rule. Mr. Crocker's fine plate number collec- tion of United States stamps dates from plate number one to the present time, 1200, all unused. Rarities are stamps from plate eighty-nine, which whole issus when printed was sent to Shanghal, where 500,000 American stamps are sold yearly. In this United States collection =2 soc MEDAL FROM BOSTON PHILATELIC / Henry J \(ROCKEK:. FOR 3 O‘BEST TAREEVAIUABIE- WE/TERN Fpre FoaNir are two of the St. Louis 20-cent stamps, known to have sold as high as $3300 each. They have an Interesting history. Before the " United - States Government issued stamps the city of St. Louis employed a card engraver to engrave six stamps on a plate the size of a card. "The values were four 5-cent stamps and two ten: For a long time it was thought that thess were all the stamps issued by St. Lou's, but later it was discovered that they had need of some 20-cent stamps. The sam engraver being called upon, took the same plate, turned it over, beat out on copper the original two fives and inserted the 20 instead. The stamps as printed show traces of the amerdment. These 20-cent- €rs now rank as the rarest stamps of the United States. A curigsity in American stamps are the 2-cent Pan-American stamps on wh'ch the train is Inverted. About four sheets of these with this error, or 400 in all, were issued. They were sold to a commercial house and use of them was begun before the error was discovered. Then collectors flocked to secure them at $100 each. The 1-cent inverted steamship is also shown in blocke of four. Other curios in the eyes of philatelists are stamps from Liberia, issue of 1802, with the head of Cheeseman, then Presi- dent, inverted; a 4-cent stamp of the same country with an inverted elephant; a 10-centime stamp of Belgian Congo with the falls of the Congo inverted. This stamp is valued at $%0. An interesting stamp is a 5-center of Coamo, which brings up memories of the capture of that place by the Americans. A very rare rench stamp is the 15 and 30 cenfimes of the Isle de la Reunion, black on blue. Thesa are valued at $350 and Mr. Crocker is proud of three of them. ‘I'nere are also errors from Sweden, Russia, Bu garia and one from Prugsia’ valued at $400. In the stamps of Spain, Cuba and the Transvaal therc is an unusual amount of historic, interest.and rarity, as showing the many changes in government through which these Spuntries have passed. - The stamps of the Transvaal now bear the royal initiais E. R. L in place of V. R. I. A great rarity among the American stamps is a United States 3-cent of 1861 . surcharged “C. 8. of A..” issued by th: Confederate government immediately aft- er the breaking out of the war of seces- sion and used pendinz the distribution of the stamps issued by the Confederacy. Others of value are two specimens of the Baton Rouge on original cover, valued at $i0 each, and also a McCormick “error’” of this stamp, valued at $100, and an un- severed pair of the unperforated United States 30-cent orange of 156, worth $500. Among stamps which may be exptcted to soon advance in ue are the Japanese and also the English issues bearing the of Queen Victoria. Since the pass- gfgadawa? of the Queen it has become quite a fad with collectors to make a page at least of Queen’s head stamps. A scarlet book of quaint Japanese de sign is a_volume full of treasures in the shape of rare stamps of that nation Mr. Crocker has also a very inter ssting and valuable collection ot Western franks, representing all the early letter-carrying express_companies, _such as the Pony express, Freeman's, Hum- boldt's, Weaverville and Adams & Co. One specimen, of the frank of the Central Overland California and Pikes Peak Ex- ress Company, is valuable, and unique n its story. It is stamped in green Ink and for a long time no one could make out the cause of the error, as all the other franks of the company were stamped in black. This_was in green and bearing date March 17, which suggested to a Ger- man that the expressman must have beem of Irish natiopality and had changed the color of the ink on his stamp in honor of “‘ould St. Patrick.” Which was undoubt- edly the case. Among the rarest unused stamps in Mr. cker's collection are the Canada 12d. Ths six varieties of Canada 6d including a mint block of 4. Turk's Island shilling and 4d on 1 shilling. Cape of Good Hope 5 shilling WK. > A. pair of Granada, the rare surcharge 4d 12. Great Brit 4d " rose medium cross and an- Vincent 4d dull blue perf. ain 2d lg crown perf, 16; zarter, the 2 1 pound WK. chor, “1d plate 77, § shilling plate 4, 1 pound 1 R. officlal and 10 shilling WK. cross. Nova Scotia shillings, New Brunswick shillings, the 6d yellow and the Conneli stamp. Newfoundiand 2d, 4d, Cd and 6%d and 13 comp both the vermilion and orange ehad; d orange being the rarest of all. These are absolutely mint condition. The me. dio peso rose of Peru, Egvpt error, surchars, Niger Coast rarities. The 4R. Zurich with- sut lines, 15R. small figures, 5c post local with. aut frary. Two Sicilies 13 Tornese arms a»d \/\f’\/—nvnszow BOSTON PHILATELIC SOCIETY MEDAL . cross. Tuscany 6 crazie B crazles lines, 3 lira, The four rare Spains, rror, Bavaria G Kr. broken circi Brunswick 3 silber groschen. Mecklenbu 44 Touletted. Br. Guiana 2c type set, Aligce 3 centimes inverted net. The three rarc Japar plate numbers, 10 sen plate 5, 20 sen plate and 6 sen plate 22. Ceylon 4d rose, 84 browr unperf, and Sd yellow brown pe: Hongkong 4e perf. 214 and 96 yellow br. Mauritius 1st stage plate 1d and ment the error A2 witaout surc buan 12¢'C. A, sideways $1 on 16¢ blue and on 16c blue rare type. India § annas. Tas mania 1¢ blue. New Zealand pair 3d° blue pelure paper, South Australia 44 violer perf. and roul. - Western Australia st jssie 2d brown on red, 6d bronze, 2d violet error, 6¢ on bluish. Tasmanla 2d yellow green no W Mauritius one shilling green small perf. Re union 30 centimes. 5 Cauca, Sweden error 3¢ ore, Canada lc laid paper. Rare Transvaal inverted surcharges. Sheet of Coamo TUnited States, August '61, fic and 10c. Se y low, a block of 11 24c lilac. considered the rarest of U. S. stamps, strip of inverted ¥ merican, 3c se t. Laszos 10 shillin Fiji_rare surcharges. Philippines error corod in pair. The catalogue value of these 100 un- used stamps is nearly $20,000 and as all these are mint condition they are worth in many instances more than catalogue. Among great rarities In used stamps ifn Mr. Crocker's col- lection are Hawaiian Islands, 1851 132 bl type I. plate IL: 13¢c blue type II plate IT blue type 1. plate I. St. Louls 20c gray, %5 gray. and 10c ~greenish.” Rritish Guiana, 4o orange, 4c vellow pelure. 12¢ blue sugar pa- per. 2c vellow, lc pink, 4c blue. Labuan ~ermina w.own and C. C. 1380 Gc on 16c bl verticas Saxony 2¢ 1853 Zc on 16c blue. Dominica 1386 1d_on v.' ETeen (with suarantee). Mauritius 1848 51 biue, bluisi (error _pence). Switzerland 10K. black and red on yellow, no frame; 10c yel- low green (double), 23%R. red and black post local (no frame). ' Great Britain, 4d green plate, 17, 10d brown red plate 2 on cover, td chestnut’ plate 13, the three almost unique). Tuscany 3 lira ocbre.. Barbadocs 1878 14 on shillings rose (en pair). South Aus on 4d bluc double surcharge. Brit ich Bechuanaland 4d vermilion and biack, sur charge inverted. New South Wales 3d green watermarked 2 (en pair), 2 Sydney view. Vie- toria 5d blue Touletted (pair on cover). = New- foundiand 1 sh. ~scarlet vermilion. ~Guadas loupe 4c blue unpaid letter. Cape of Goor Hope 4d red error wood block. Transvaal 1 red, wide roulette (30a). Canada 12d blaci, two coples. Newfoundland 2 searlet vermile fon. Tazmania 1d blue. Spain perf, 14 blue and rose, frame inverted, unperforated frame inverted. United States of America, 150, 24c, 30c, pleture inverted. Buchanan on cover. Drattleboro Sc. S brown embossing covering entire stamp on cover. These Iaet 100 cataloeue over $20.000 and tock the first prize at the recent exhibition in New York. ALFRED DEZENDORF.