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Important Lessons for Postal Historians |
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Utilizing Auction Catalog Information - The Wheres and Bewares |
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Bob Markovits |
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The Postal History Journal, Nr. 86, January 1990 |
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Very few books on philatelic subjects cite more than a handful of important auction catalogs. Although it is not unusual to see the Colonel Green, Hind, Ferrari, Caspary or Lilly sale cited as the source or provenance of some of the great philatelic items, rarely does any writer go deeply into the mainstream auction catalogs. In fact, very few writers show any knowledge of what I consider to be the most important reference source in all of philately, short of having a stamp or postal history item in front of you. |
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One of the most useful compilations of catalogs has been started by Dr. Stanley M. Bierman in California. Writing in the American Philatelic Literature Review, he lists some of the older catalogs by houses and briefly describes their highlighted contents. Unfortunately, Herbert Trenchard, our foremost auction catalog collector, has yet to publish listings. |
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I also admit that I have not mined this quarry of basic/original resource material as fully as I should have, and find myself going back over sales I have previously reviewed as my areas of expertise and interest grow. Unfortunately I am not computer literate so I cannot list at minimum the titles of the sales at the dozen major auction houses from the catalogs that I possess in my extensive philatelic library. This would be at least a start. Would it not be wonderful, for instance, if the frontispieces of all the Robson Lowe catalogs, especially the postal history sales, were listed and made accessible to the specialist in those fields? |
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The American Philatelic Research Library has been computerizing its bibliographical sources. At this point, it probably has the foremost computerized reference source in the world for philatelic material. It has been most helpful in working with specialists. However, its computer searches list primarily articles and books, very few auction catalog references. In fact, I would be hard-pressed to remember where it has referred to any sales. |
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Bibliographies Need Catalogs |
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If collectors would take specific fields and compile the respective bibliographies, not only the books and articles, but also the auction catalogs, the enjoyment of the world of philately would be so much better. |
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Lately, for instance, I have started to work in the area of some South and Central American countries as well as certain African countries. In some of these fields there are study groups, not only in the country of origin, but also in Great Britain and the United States, and their journals are most helpful. However, most of these journals are not indexed, and there are no lists of meaningful auction sales. |
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To sit down and go through all of the Robson Lowe auction catalogs or those by Christie's, Sotheby's, Siegel, Harmer, Fox, Mozian, Harmer-Rooke, Pelander, Fifield, Lawrence and Stryker, Stanley-Gibbons, Apfelbaum, or any other long runs of auction catalogs, is an extensive job-and an overwhelming one, I might add. |
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Catalog Data Add to Articles |
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My most recent series of articles in 1989 and 1990 issues of The Collectors Club Philatelist on the U.S. 5-cent Taylor stamp of 1875-1879 benefited tremendously from my review of auction catalogs. I have probably reviewed 12,000 different sales in order to come up with some of the statistical information and facts I included on this stamp. |
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The Taylor articles illustrate how catalogs can uncover spectacular material that has not been on the market for 50 years. For example, in going over the Herman Herst sales, a run that I possess, I came across a combination of the Taylor stamp used with two Cuban stamps on one envelope. This is the only reference I have ever seen to this incredible cover. In reviewing some Siegel auction catalogs, I found a pair of 5-cent Taylors used with a 30-cent 1869 stamp on a large-sized 1882 registered envelope to England. This cover was in the Margaret Wunsch collection, which Siegel sold in 1978. |
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Information gleaned from auction catalogs can also help the collector describe his material at hand. I found a New York steamship marking on a pair of 5-cent Taylors on cover coming into New York, and in the upper left-hand corner was noted the "USS Omaha." Shortly thereafter, in reviewing some Siegel sales in the 60's and 70's, I came across two covers with a steamship marking canceling another stamp of the period, including the description stating that the Omaha at that time was off the coast of Africa. That gave the first cover an additional dimension. Subsequently, a well-known postal historian advised me that a book on Navy ships at sea and their locations - a very difficult book to locate - was probably the source of the comment in the Siegel catalog. Thus, the ship reference in the Siegel sale led me to another excellent reference that I had never seen cited in any philatelic literature. |
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Although very few collectors are working on auction catalogs as separate and distinct collections, several literature dealers have begun to list runs of various auction houses as part of their offerings, and more and more auction firms are listing catalog runs in their sales, since collectors are learning how important catalogs are to research. Not only are the fabulous name sales important to researchers. In my experience more information comes from a long run of a major auction firm than from name auction catalogs, with the exception of information on the major pieces. |
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Are Cataloged Items Genuine? |
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What one does not know, however, is whether the items that catalogs report are genuine, fake or altered. Unless one actually has the material at hand, the accuracy of auction catalogs is suspect. What I do not know about the Wunsch cover, for example, and what one must "beware," is whether this cover was ever submitted to an expertising service, rejected and returned to the auction house for mis-description. In any case, we have a reference with a photograph, which is barely passable. At least the cover deserves some mention in an article and its bibliography, not only on the Taylor stamps, but also on late uses of the 1869 issue. In the absence of any other reference, it is the best that exists. |
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This article, then, is a request, almost a crying one, for each specialist in major fields to list somewhere, either in the Postal History Journal or the American Philatelic Literature Review, the bibliography of that specific area. During a recent visit to the American Philatelic Society in State College, Pennsylvania, I was fortunate to locate a copy of Robert G. Stone's Bibliography of French Colonies Literature. But, as I perused it, nowhere could I find a listing of the major auction sales of this decade, this half-century, or this century in any of the areas in which Stone has written and researched. This is not to demean the fabulous work that he has done because the bibliography is a most valuable reference source. Still, in my opinion, it falls tremendously short of being a total research tool since it does not delve into the auction catalog field. |
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At The Collectors Club's awards banquet in New York last June, the president noted that, again, its auction catalog collection has been put in order through the yeoman efforts of two of its members, and will again be available to the membership for review. Frankly, I cannot wait to avail myself of this opportunity at one of the premier philatelic libraries in the United States. Although the library's card file is an outstanding tool. and has been published in book form, no one has given the same treatment and respect to its auction house works. Nor has anyone done the necessary referencing, except Dr. Bierman, whose efforts are a major start, but merely a drop in the bucket. |
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Major Catalog Runs |
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Dr. Bierman has prepared an interesting list of American and British auction houses, his own approach to a "private philatelic library." Publication of the summaries of the starred sales would be an important start: |
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(My library does not provide me with the date information.) |
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I would like to issue a challenge: that each of the auction houses now in business issue an index of its sales, or hire a librarian at one of the philatelic libraries to prepare an index. Each auction house most probably has a complete run of its catalogs. At a minimum, each house could list the names of the individuals and the nature of the material sold in its name sales. |
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Think of the value such indexes would have. For instance, if you are starting to collect U.S. stampless covers, and you know that the David Jarrett collection is coming up for sale at Christie's this year, you would certainly like to know that Harmer's sold the Mayer collection, that Sam Paige auctioned the Chambers collection, and that several other major stampless cover sales were held by Siegel, Harmer and Harmer Rooke. I would certainly like to review previous auction catalogs and not have to rely on only the American Stampless Cover Catalog for all the information on which I would base my bids. These catalogs would give clues to what exists. They would certainly illustrate the finer covers. This beneficial information would enable the collector to decide whether a cover in the Christie's sale clearly has the finest known strike, as Jarrett certainly tried to buy. |
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I don't know how anybody can write authoritatively on any topic in philately without first checking at least three or four of the major auction houses that sell material in that area. Take Far East Asia as an example. George Alevizos and Michael Rogers have held leading sales in recent years. Earlier Sun Philatelic Corporation and Wolffers ran some very significant sales. Alevizos has also published lists of literature in the esoteric areas in which he has been dealing, and he is to be commended for doing so. But I do not remember seeing in his lists any auction sales containing specialized material from these esoteric areas. |
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Auction Catalog Clippings |
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Calvet M. Hahn's article in Stamp Collector on June 16, 1990, shows a more detailed and specific use of catalogs as a source of clippings. I have seen. enjoyed and used the 40-year record of selected United States Auction clippings (1940-1980) prepared as a labor of love by Frank S. Levi. Hahn illustrates a page from this tremendous work. While most of the great rarities are present; it is still a selective grouping of material. |
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The U.S. dealers Jack E. Molesworth of Boston and Robert A. Siegel of New York have prepared a similar work of pieces useful to them. Mr. & Mrs. Alvin Kantor of Chicago put together a record of GEM U.S. stamps, not postal history, to enable them to know which pieces were best in their quest for a perfect U.S. collection, Gene Costales also clipped catalogs, which he used as a basis for the Scott Specialized Catalogues. |
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I have made all my comments in this article as recommendations, not criticisms. I do not want any reader to feel that I am like the minister or rabbi on the pulpit during the most important religious occasion, who chastises the members of the congregation present about the other members absent! Those people I have mentioned have tried in their different ways to provide collectors and dealers with philatelic literature. It is most critical that they now try to broaden their efforts to include auction catalogs. Even if they provide only photocopies for sale, this at least makes available much more information than most collectors now possess about their fields. |
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A Final Challenge |
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I would like to throw down one more challenge, this one to the membership of the Postal History Society. If each of you who studies a particular country or field would type a one-page list of the literature and catalogs that you use, philately would advance 30 to 50 percent virtually overnight upon receipt of those lists at the nine key philatelic libraries in the United States: The Collectors Club in New York, Collectors Club of Chicago, American Philatelic Research Library (State College, Pennsylvania), Weinberger Philatelic Library (Dallas, Texas), Sunnyvale Public Library (Sunnyvale, California), The Postal History Foundation (Tucson, Arizona), Cardinal Spellman Library (Weston, Massachusetts), Library of Congress (Washington) and the Smithsonian's National Philatelic Collection (Washington). |
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One further comment is in order. What I seek as the final output from my challenge is already probably 80 percent complete for the U.S. Confederate area. In the Quarterman book by Crown appears auctions of Confederate material. Those collectors who enjoy studying the U.S. North-South conflict of 1861-1865 surely have benefited from this list. |
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e-mail: bob markovits |
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copyright © 2000-04 fran adams |
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