HH Sales - Current and Forthcoming Auctions

Recent, current and forthcoming auctions

Our auction sales are always divided into the same main groups, each of these containing sub divisions within them.

General Subjects
bibliographic; forgeries & reprints; aviation, maritime, railways, military, polar; exhibitions & congresses

Great Britain & Ireland
general; Queen Victoria; twentieth century; stationery, postage due, officials, revenues, cinderellas; postal history & postmarks; local postal history; Scotland, Wales & the Islands; Channel Isles; Ireland

British Commonwealth
general; alphabetically by countries

Europe & Colonies
general; alphabetically by countries

The Americas
United States; Latin America general & alphabetically by countries

Africa & Asia Levant & the rest of the World
general & alphabetically by countries

Special subjects
journals & magazines; auction catalogues; cinderellas; thematics; picture postcards & collectibles; albums; maps & prints; ephemera;

Non philatelic reference works
general reference works; history & topography

Please note: you will need Acrobat Reader installed to download the list. To download Acrobat Reader visit this site: www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

This is a large list - Click here to download the file.

SALE 151 INDEX

Part One General Subjects Lot Nos 1 - 197

Part Two Great Britain & Ireland Lot Nos 198 - 440

Part Three British Commonwealth Lot Nos 441 - 631

Part Four Foreign Countries - Europe & Colonies Lot Nos 632 - 1116

Part Five Foreign Countries - the Americas Lot Nos 1117 - 1159

Part Six Foreign Countries - Africa & Asia Lot Nos 1160 - 1191

Part Seven Journals, magazines, catalogues & general reference works Lot Nos 1192 - 1330

Following our grand "2000" sale held in June 2000 we fully expected that would be the best we would hold for at least five years.

However, events have overtaken us as all our recent sales, Nos. 143 - 149, have contained an exceptional amount of rare and unusual titles with sale results exceeding our expectations.

We have a large amount of material "in the pipeline" which includes several small but significant libraries, together with further material from the large libraries which we have been selling in our recent sales.

All of this should appear in sales 147 - 150 during the course of 2003/4.

If you would like to see a sample or regularly receive our catalogues, please go to our enquiry form.

CLICK HERE TO VISIT OUR PRICES REALISED PAGE

FAQ's Frequently Asked Questions

For those of you who are not used to using postal auctions, or who are not familiar with the British way of dealing with them, we give here the answers to some of the questions we are asked.

The publications and catalogues

Postal Auction
A postal auction (in USA Mail Auction, in France Vente sur Offres) is an auction entirely conducted by postal bids (including bids submitted by telephone, fax or e-mail) with no actual public sale venue. The sale closes at the appointed date & time, and all lots are theoretically knocked down to the highest bidders at that one moment. In practice it takes a day to sort through the whole sale and establish the buyers of each lot.

Postal bids - How do I bid
Bids may be submitted by post, fax, telephone or e-mail. You should state your highest bid for each lot, but they will be allocated to the winner at the lowest possible price, which is one step above the second highest bid, or at the reserve if there are no other bids. 'Buy' bids are not encouraged as this can lead to difficulties.

Prices Realised
After each sale is closed, a list of prices realised for all those lots which sold is prepared and will be placed on the website for reference as soon as practical. Unsold lots are available at the reserve prices (usually 80% of the estimates) for about six weeks after the sale, sometimes longer.

Settlements - How do I pay
Invoices will be sent to all successful bidders, usually separately from the actual goods. Payment may be made by credit card (Visa, Mastercard, or Eurocard) either pre-stated with the bids or after the invoice has been received. Otherwise payments should be made by cheque in British pounds sterling, or for European customers by Eurocheque (not exceeding £200). UK & European customers may also pay by Giro (in France CCP).

We prefer not to receive cash payments and if you wish to pay by US dollar cheque please add $US15 to defray the bank costs. We cannot accept US dollar cheques below $50 on account of the disproportionate Bank charges.

Stocklist We use the term stocklist, as opposed to an auction sale, to indicate that the prices stated are fixed prices, not requiring bids, for titles from our general stock or in a fixed price sale. In some instances trade terms are available for some titles, to bona fide trade people.

The terminology

Auction catalogues & 'Named Sales'
Auction catalogues refer to the sale catalogues of stamps and books produced by the major philatelic houses such as Christies/Robson Lowe, Harmers, Sothebys, Stanley Gibbons and their counterparts in other countries. 'Named sales' is the term we use for the catalogue of a collection on one topic by one person, or of one country, for example the 'Burrus' France or the 'Mr X' Bahamas.

Cinderellas
This is the word now used almost universally for labels which have the appearance of stamps but which are not actually postage stamps. Included in this term are, Revenues, Fiscals, Locals, Exhibition Labels, Poster Stamps, and Aviation, Patriotic, Political or Trade publicity stamps and etiquettes. Some people also include forgeries, fakes and reprints in this category, but we catalogue these separately.

Ephemera
By this we mean items, generally made of paper or card, which have pictorial, advertising, financial or trade connotations, including postal documents and forms. Included in this group would for example be billheads, tickets, licences, illustrative and advertising documents, financial instruments such as cheques, bonds and share certificates, as well as other insurance and banking documents.

Exhibition catalogues
This term refers to the documentation prepared before, during and after any philatelic exhibition (or occasionally non-philatelic), in particular the prospectus, bulletins, main catalogue, palmares and final report produced by many exhibitions from about 1900 (with a very few earlier).

Fakes & Forgeries
(see above under Cinderellas). Nowadays the terms are used rather loosely to describe any stamp object produced to defraud either the post office (postal forgeries) or the collector. Fakes tend to describe those items which have been altered to improve or otherwise enhance them, both stamps and covers; bogus stamps refer to items which were never properly issued and which were produced solely to hoodwink collectors. Reprints refer to items produced either by governments or postal authorities (official reprints) or by collectors and dealers from original printing material, usually unofficially.

Locals
This is used to describe any issue which was produced in an official or semi-official capacity, but for use in a very limited area and usually not by the main postal authority. Good examples of this are the Russian Zemstvos, the German Stadpost issues of the 1880's & 1890's, the US city posts of New York and other towns, the Swiss and Hungarian Hotel Posts, the Shipping Company stamps, the Railway carriage labels, the Oxford & Cambridge College stamps and the Bicycle posts of Coolgardie and Mafeking.

Non Philatelic We use this term in our sales to describe any title which is not strictly concerned with philately or postal history, but which in our view has some connotations with it; for example history or topography, and in particular transport history, maritime, railway and aviation.

Officials Most catalogues and collectors use this term to describe stamps which have been produced (often being normal stamps overprinted), for use by various Government departments. Examples are found in Great Britain, India, Australia, USA, Argentine, Iraq, Mexico and many other countries.

Postal Stationery In French entiers postaux, in German Ganzsachen, this refers to all items produced for use through the mail in the form of postcards, envelopes, newspaper bands and other similar formats usually (but not initially with some countries) with an impressed stamp similar to the current definitive issue of that country. The first envelopes were the Mulreadys and Penny Pinks of GB, and the Russian and Finnish Town posts. The first postcards appeared in Austria in 1869 and in France, Germany & GB in 1870. They are sometimes referred to in jest as stamps with very large margins, which is really what they are.

Revenues & Fiscals
The two words are used indiscriminately to describe stamps which have been produced by virtually all countries to raise tax revenue for purposes other than postage. Postal Fiscals are those stamps which have had dual use, being valid for postal purposes as well as tax raising purposes, for example in GB from the 1850's to the 1880's.

Thematics
This is the English word for the American term Topical and signifies the collecting of stamps and postal history by the subject matter (theme or topic) rather than the country of origin, which determines most collecting. Obvious examples are the collection of Birds, Fish, Animals, Flowers, Trees, Trains, Ships, Music, Religion, as depicted on stamps and postmarks, and a myriad different speciality or esoteric subjects.

These are just some of the general terms we use in our descriptions. For a listing of the abbreviations we regularly use in our catalogues, please click here.