The happy seller was the Australian Stamp & Coin Company, based in the Forest Hill Chase Shopping Centre, located in an eastern suburb of Melbourne. The envelope was illustrated as part of their 24 page sale listing which appeared in the centre of the February magazine.

Our cover story in February edition pictured the unique commercial envelope franked with two 1994 50t on 35t Gogodala Mask stamps with striking double overprints.

This clearly commercial cover was postmarked Goroka January 13th 1995, and addressed to a large correspondence school in the USA. The envelope was purchased by the dealer in June 1997 at the large PACIFIC 97 International in San Francisco from an American collector.

The postmark on the cover exactly matches a single used copy of this inverted overprint located in kiloware 7 months earlier by Lance Skinner, well known Sydney based specialist collector. Not only do both "finds" have the identical postmark, right down to the 12:30 PM time slug, they both are struck in an unusual violet black ink.

This cover sold on March 3rd for $4,750 to a Queensland collector, beating out a number of bids received on this item from all over the world. It is believed to be a record price for any Papua New Guinea postage stamp item, and also a record price for any post war cover from PNG.

It is expected Stanley Gibbons and Scott will list this double overprint in future catalogues. The equally spectacular inverted overprint that occurs on the same stamp is already listed as SG #736a, and sells readily through auction for about $1,500 despite a complete sheet of 50 being discovered and sold by the writer. Coincidentally these were also purchased near Goroka in the central Highlands, the site of this latest find.

THREE COPIES REPORTED

Despite the front cover publicity for this double overprint back in February, no other copies have been reported to me or the owners of these exciting stamps, so it appears the single used copy and used pair on cover are the only examples recorded.

Mr Lance Skinner the owner of the single copy, told me today he is delighted with his discovery, and has no intention of selling, as he has a very specialised collection of the fascinating 1994 "Emergency Overprints" series. New owner of the unique "double overprint" cover is a Queensland collector who also has a large collection of the very popular PNG 1994 issues. This same collector also owns the rather spectacular 15 Kina Departure Tax stamp on Qantas ticket, illustrated on the front cover of the February magazine.

The new owner said today: "this cover is the centerpiece of my collection. I agree completely with the comment made by Mr Eastick in the magazine that the cover was 'surely the most significant piece of legitimate PNG history ever recorded'. I was determined to secure this item at almost any cost, and would have paid a great deal more if competition necessitated" he continued.

He said: "two single copies of the New Zealand 1996 'Teddy Bear' error sold at Auction last week in Sydney for $4,850, despite several hundreds of copies being recorded. By paying somewhat LESS than that price for a clearly unique cover franked with two copies of a major printing error from a very popular country is probably the best stamp buy of my lifetime."

"BEST EVER ADVERTISING RESPONSE"

Manager of the Australian Stamp & Coin Company is Mr. Michael Eastick, who was naturally delighted with the strong result. "We received tremendous response to our sale listing in Australasian STAMPS - our best ever advertising response" he told me today. "Not only did we sell material to your readers all over the world, but many of these names were totally new clients to us, and we are delighted to know we had material diverse enough, and competitively priced enough, to attract their custom" he continued.

"The response was so great we have booked another thick sale insert into the 'May' edition of Australasian STAMPS. I have just stepped off a plane from a buying trip to both Europe and USA, and secured some wonderful material on this trip. Much of it will be included in this next sale, and some of it I am confident has never before been offered on the Australian market previously," said Mr Eastick.

Readers requiring a complimentary advance copy of the sale catalogue may write to Mr. Eastick at: