One story I have followed with great interest over the past decade or so, is the exciting discovery of a part cover bearing 3 x SG 1d Plate "77" stamps.  The discovery was of an 1865 part cover from Guernsey in the Channel Islands, hand addressed in a florid copperplate, and mailed to Brussels Belgium.  Details here - tinyurl.com/plate77

It was found in an old collection job lot in Europe decades back, where the scarce plate number had not been recognised. The part cover was pre-paid with 3 x 1d Red stamps, all really dreadfully centred, and cancelled as you can see with the Guernsey "324" barred numeral obliterator.

One of those is very badly scuffed, and one is creased/torn.  A rather ugly piece, value in normal circumstances - a dollar or so on a good day.  However all stamps are showing Plate “77” on both sides as you can see nearby - making this literally a £1+ million rarity in the view of many experienced minds in the trade.  NO others exist on cover.

It is most certainly a 7 figure piece, based on the SG recent sales of £550,000 for a single off centred example, and the recent £495,000 paid to Gibbons for the scissor mutilated stamp shown nearby, with a spike hole in it.  Catalogue value of a used single OFF cover is £600,000 in the current 2019 SG “Part 1” Commonwealth catalogue.   

Stampboards has many 100s of detailed colour photos of this issue, and charts and graphs, large microscope blow ups, detailed forensic and chemist reports, and outlining the whereabouts of the other known existing plate “77’ examples.  All added to, and discussed vigorously, by members all over the globe, many of them 1d QV and early GB stamp experts - tinyurl.com/plate77

The RPSL laughably claimed to the owner that all 6 x number 77s had all been “glued on”,  and the Philatelic Foundation in New York initially claimed the 7s were all newly painted in, and both gave it a "faked" Certificate.  Talk about Amateur Hour in - STEREO!                                     

Both utter nonsensical views it seemed to me, and to many others who have studied the matter - and the cover!  And both were totally discredited on all counts, in a detailed report by a renowned forensic document expert - victorhugocover.com - a fascinating read.

The owner Abed Najjar, commissioned at vast expense I am sure, a briefcase full of detailed scientific and lab reports by Professors and chemists, and other highly skilled experts in paper and chemistry and inks etc, from many countries.  And more damning, a copious report by global leading Forensic Document Examiner, Dr. Robert Radley.

Najjar is a leading collector and specialist, has an honours degree in Pharmacy, has been in philately for about 50 years, written award winning books on his stamp fields, and has published informed work of others in philately.

In addition, he has written a dozen or so detailed and scholastic articles in USA and UK specialised publications and magazines, examining the strange situation with these clear Plate 77 numbers, that Plate to 73, and how that might have occurred etc.

He also expertises the stamps of Transjordan, a country that abounds with fakes and forgeries.  So I certainly feel he is certainly experienced enough to tell what is genuine from fake, hence his doggedness in chasing this matter through, where many would have faltered. 

A very interesting development took place earlier this year, when the Royal Philatelic Society London (RPSL) publicly tore up their pervious erroneous and negative Certificates on this part cover - see excerpt of their backdown nearby in their member Journal.

The Philatelic Foundation in New York, after fully reviewing the real world barrage of science the owner provided on this cover, did a total back-flip, and tore up the first absurd "painted in and faked numbers"  Certificate, and issued one in 2013 as “All Plate 77 - genuine useage”.  See photo nearby.  Full credit to them for finally getting it right.  Those on the original “Expert” (sic) Committee soon were no longer there. 

Forensic paper examiner Radley examined both the RPSL and PF “Expert Opinions” in detail, and tore them apart, and made them both look like Amateur Hour outfits in the process. This is a highly qualified Expert who has testified as a forensic paper and ink and document witness in 100s of Court Trials globally.

The RPS original opinion was even more amateur - they in essence stated to the owner - “Sumwun Glooed On Da Numbahs”.  I kid you not.  A fingernail examination would have debunked that loopy theory, but they dug their head in the British Sand like ostriches, for some years until 2019, and have now tore up their two silly “Opinions”, and agreed in writing that they had done so, in their member newsletter.

So after this long overdue RPSL development, the famous Victor Hugo cover now has only 3 Expert Certificates, each stating that all the stamps, and the cover, are all genuine, and unaltered in any way, and bear GB 1d stamps, each bearing Plate 77 numbers.

The American Philatelic Society Expert Committee, (APS) and Sergio Sismondo Expert Committee also later issued certificates as genuine and unaltered Plate "77" stamps and cover, leaving the “Royal” in London looking sillier than ever, with their "Sumwun Glooed On Da Numbahs" nonsense view, that a 12 year old could debunk with a $5 UV light!

This cover bears three stamps that “plate” via the corner letter positions and alignment, and minor characteristics, to the usual issues made from Plate 73.  That much was established over a decade back.  Clearly a short term repair, or re-entry, or alteration etc, was made to the original Plate 73 in these (and possibly other corner letter positions) - students of the line engraved issues are working on how it occurred, but it most clearly did.

The last word in Philately is NEVER written - we all accept that, and major new finds occur each year that were hitherto regarded as totally impossible.  It took a century for a Sideways Watermark on the Australia 1d Red KGV to appear (SG 20cz, £50,000) - literally the most studied stamp on this PLANET - and then another surfaces soon afterwards etc.  We must have open minds.

The Swedish Philatelic “Establishment” as recently as the mid 1970s, totally and publicly debunked the unique “Tre Skilling Yellow” stamp as a total fake and fabrication.  A large Committee of 9 of the leading Philatelists there, made all sorts of totally wacky and loopy claims, and science in that case too, later proved them all totally and hopelessly wrong.  It later allegedly changed hands for $ Millions at Auction several times of course.

Some of the Swedish “Experts” even claimed it was faked by using pieces from THREE stamps to make the one.  Others said it was bleached and chemically colour altered etc.  The stamp has been very crudely re-perforated along the top as you can hopefully see, (in the wrong gauge!) and actually has a pretty large slit in it, but it allegedly got Millions each time it was trotted out for auction. 

In 1974 it was exhibited at the stand of Frimarkshuset A.B. the well-known Swedish dealers, at “Stockholmia 74”.  The stamp was then offered to the Swedish Postal Museum for purchase at $US1 million.  The curator Gilbert Svensson had always suspected it to be a forgery, and arranged for it to be handed over to a group of nine Swedish stamp “Experts” to examine.  

After getting the damning reports from this group, stamp owner René Berlingen, and Frimarkshuset A.B. then paid for a very detailed scientific and X-Ray report in 1975, by a Professor of Medial Biophysics, on the paper and ink etc, which pointed to the Tre Skilling Banco stamp being a genuine colour error of the 1855 3 Skilling stamp - being printed in yellow, instead of the usual green the 3 Skilling stamp came in.

How or why this occurred no-one knows, after 164 years.  If a cliché of the 3 Skilling were printed in the wrong colour ink, clearly more than one was produced, and indeed one imagines several sheets were done, if that was the case.  No others have ever been found, so the mystery remains to this day, as to how or why it was created.  But only a few decades after being decried a crude fake in Sweden, it is now accepted as 105% genuine.

Count Gustaf Douglas, (FRSPL, RDP) is a Swedish aristocrat, multi Billionaire businessman, and politician.  He is the founder of Securitas who have 370,000 staff globally, and bought the unique 1855 Sweden error of colour by private treaty in May 2013 for his Sweden collection. He included it in a display of his Sweden to the Royal Philatelic Society London, in 2013.

Douglass was the MAJOR financial backer, (with a capital M!) to the recent large ”STOCKHOLMIA 2019” in June, and was styled for the years leading up as “Philatelic Head Patron”.  He has the largest Swedish stamp collection extant.  Displaying the Tre Skilling Yellow here as shown in photo nearby, he said was: “the greatest day in my 50 years of philately as my hobby.”

tinyurl.com/plate77 caries the complete discussion on this GB Plate 77 cover, which to date has some 3,300 different messages, with an amazing 215,000 page views, thus far.  Well after the early Certificates, the owner, via neat detective work, discovered the cover was hand addressed by Victor Hugo - the famous French novelist etc, who wrote “Les Misérables” and ”The Hunchback of Notre-Dame”.

Hugo was the most famous resident ever of Guernsey, and the Guernsey cancelled cover was addressed in Hugo’s hand to his publisher in Brussels.  Publisher Lacroix Verboekhoven's offices were at Impasse du Parc, Rue Royal, Brussels. Exactly as shown on the cover.  Sothebys Paris handwriting expert on Victor Hugo, confirmed the addressing on cover was his.

A local friend, an RPSL member, sent me a clear scan of the apology piece in the “The London Philatelist” of January/February 2019 date, withdrawing any inference the stamps were faked in any way, and confirming they have now torn up their silly “Certificates”.  He has always felt this cover was kosher.                         

I recall asking Christoph Gaertner his thoughts, and he too was bemused at the fuss.  These three are not your brown cardigan, retired Water Board clerks, on the RPSL Committee, who grow prize pumpkins in their copious spare time - but are all super savvy mega $$$ million a year movers and shakers, in the global stamp world. 

Between them, these leading Auctioneers have sold near every major rarity in the stamp world.  Period.  I have zero doubt any of them would hesitate to offer it for sale, if it were ever consigned to them.  A unique GB cover, sent by a famous writer, with three clear Expert Certificates, is a no-brainer major sale piece anywhere.

Arthur Gray, the greatest collector this country has even seen, (and who was a highly regarded FRPSL member of course!) told me the Victor Hugo Cover was genuine beyond doubt in his view, and to quote him: "I just can't see what all the fuss is about - of course no-one would try and fake THREE crappy looking stamps, on an ugly looking part cover."           

Arthur was a fine judge of horseflesh, and had an uncanny "nose'' for fakes.  He was offered several "Missing Head'' 1d Kangaroos from many sources, over the decades, and told them all to go away, as they were forged.  Some had BPA "Expert" (sic) Certificates, but he dismissed them all, and history shows us he was right - they were fakes made by Major Dormer Legge!

The ACSC to this day, lists none of these Headless Roo fabrications, as editor Dr. Geoff Kellow shares Arthur’s (and my) view on these pretty crude fakes - but one got a 5 figure sum as I recall - a fool and his money are soon parted as they say.  tinyurl.com/RooHead is a long discussion on these novelties  

I suspect Arthur would be pleased to see the RPSL finally seeing sense, and backing off on this one at long last, conceding nothing was faked on the stamps, or the cover.  They took their time, but in the end science and forensics, and the weight of positive opinions from other leading Expert Comittees, prevailed.

Royal Mail issued these 10 Elton John stamps in mid-September.  Not often do any new issue sets of stamps appeal to me visually but this lot did, so will share them here.  The stamps are in a mix of “1ST” Class which are “Forever” stamps, and the £1.55 value which is for Rest of World (outside Europe) letter 10g-20g - i.e. what is used to USA and Australia etc. 

The current leg of Elton John’s farewell tour runs across North America until November 16, with dates following in Australia, Europe and the U.K.  As of now, the final concert date on the schedule is at London’s “O2” on December 16, 2020.  And just to prove how much of a piano playing legend he really is, there are also four stamps available in the miniature sheet of 4 depicting 4 past live shows.

These 4 stamps include highlights from his performances at London’s Hammersmith Odeon in 1973, Los Angeles’ Dodger Stadium in 1975, the Diamond Jubilee Concert at London’s Buckingham Palace in 2012, as well as his “Farewell Yellow Brick Road” tour at New York’s Madison Square Garden in 2018.

In Australia, Max Stern & Co in Melbourne are the official agents for Royal Mail new issue stamps.  I can bet they will sell a lot more of this one than anything else this year - a most attractive set.