Canadian Stamp Auctions

The strength in this auction was found in the many rare well centered blocks that were offered and their quality was excellent. The Maresch family has been in the stamp auction business for 85 years and is now being run by the two grandsons of the founder, Tony and Peter Maresch.

We found the comments at the beginning of the catalogue of great interest:

“Our February auction sale confirmed the continued strength of the stamp market, realizing 107.5% of pre-sale estimate. Bidding and viewing participation was up from previous sales. It is worth repeating that the strength of the market comes from collectors who take a lifetime (or at least many years) to build a collection, and they do this because they enjoy the hobby. Hobbies are where many of us go to escape the pressures or stress of day-to-day life, and in these times, to many of us, working on stamp collections has become an even more enticing temporary respite. At the same time, collectors are not all rushing out to sell their stamps, and this is why the stamp market will continue to be stable. We are not encouraging anyone to sell their stock portfolio and buy stamps. But it is nice to know that when the time comes to sell, there will be enthusiastic buyers chasing after your stamps.”

What nicer way to start off our review than with this beautiful strip of five of the 15¢ Large Queen:

Although the stamps were only “fine” and the strip had no gum, we found nonetheless that it was very attractive. While we pay lots of attention to valuable stamps, it’s not always the value of the stamps that draws us to them. Sometimes, as in the above strip of five, their simple beauty is enough.

Small Queens - Lovely blocks

All these blocks were showpieces and NH. It would be hard to say which one was best because they are all unusually nice, but our vote would be for the 5¢ Small Queen. In our experience, well centered NH copies of this stamp are so rare, so that, when you find such a perfect block, it really stands out as special.

Interesting fakes – Don’t be Fooled!

What a beautiful example of the 10p Jacques Cartier. Wouldn’t we all like to be the successful bidder of this outstanding copy. But wait, some things may be just too good to be true. In fact, as Maresch explains, the jumbo margins have been added. The stamp is a fake. Too bad!

So let’s try again. Here’s a block of the 3¢ Maple Leaf with the inverted overprint. The stamps are off center, there is a paper thin and the gum is disturbed, but who cares because this is a very rare stamp. It even comes with a 1925 certificate of authenticity.

It’s interesting that Scott does not list this variety. We referred to the Unitrade catalogue for further information and it stated: “ inverted overprints on the above ( ie Scott 87) are thought to be forgeries. Certificates of authenticity are highly recommended.”

Maresch was clearly suspicious and stated “sold as is despite 1925 R.P.S.L. cert. stating it to be genuine …. with which we disagree.”

We have seen a number of these inverted stamps offered an auction. Most of them are offered with a warning similar to the above. A couple have been sold as genuine.

In 1996, the same block sold at a Sissons' auction for $300. A year later, in 1997, a single copy with a Brandon certificate stating it was genuine, sold at a Sissons' auction for $95.

Despite everything, the above stamps sold for $52.50 each. This is more than their Scott catalogue value of $17.50. There’s obviously a market for these inverts, genuine or not!

$1 Jubilee

We couldn’t help noticing this block of four of the $1 Jubilee. It looked so beautiful. The stamps themselves were not perfectly centered, but as a block, the centering was quite good.

The stamps were F-VF and NH. There were wrinkles on three of them. These factors probably kept the final bid price from going higher.

2¢ Numeral – A real beauty!

Maresch really went to town on this one. They described it as “brilliant fresh, mathematically centered, n.h and superb with 2008 Philatelic Foundation graded XF 95,
catalogue values meaningless."

We can only agree that this is one very special stamp and worth every penny that was paid for it. We wouldn’t be surprised to find out that the previous owner was already regretting having sold it.

Unique Cover - Middle stamp missing inscriptions

Ou la la ! What an extraordinary cover. Did the sender know what he was doing when he placed the stamps on the envelope? Did the post office employee notice the unusual stamp in the middle when he registered the envelope? Did the recipient recognize what a rare treasure he had received? We wonder at what point some sharp eyed person noticed that there were several varieties on the cover.

We had no previous record of this variety on cover. To be able to purchase such a rare item for only $675 is extremely fortunate for the buyer. Whoever you are, you sure did well!

Well that was a very interesting auction put on by Maresch, and a real pleasure to review.

For more details of the sale, please click on the highlights button.