Be Prepared

Last week we began the preparation of lots for our November auctions in a race against Pardys the printers who will be sending out both catalogues very shortly.

Both the Great Britain and the British Empire & Foreign Countries auctions grew sufficiently in size to necessitate spreading into a second day of selling.

Our November sale week will begin on the morning of Tuesday 15th with Great Britain and a long first session that will include no less than 378 lots of 1840 Penny Blacks and Two Pence Blues. In the afternoon we reach the end of the nineteenth century and restart next morning with a final session that will include the exceptional collection of 1929 Postal Union Congress material formed by the late Ronnie Shiers (right) followed shortly after by another impressive offering of Q.E.II commemorative errors.

The British Empire & Foreign Countries auction will begin at 2pm on Wednesday 16th and a great deal of early attention will focus on Michael Oliver's remarkable study of the De La Rue Colonial Key Plates which contains a number of rare or unique early proofs and essays.

We continue on the morning of Thursday 17th, first up being another important offering of Falkland Islands material, the superlative items including not only Black and Red Frank envelopes and three 1891 Bisect covers but also the earliest known items of local and incoming mail and the earliest cover bearing Falkland Islands stamps.

Our final session in the afternoon also holds much interest for specialists, containing among other attractions, the Michael Rego Saint Lucia and Robin Burges Seychelles which both feature scarce, rarely offered material.

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The winner of last week's competition was Mr Paul Matthews of Holborn who identified both the correct geographical location of Arabia and the origin of the expression "pearls before swine".

Sadly, due to cartilage issues, Mr Matthews is currently unable to kneel down and so cannot perform many important aspects of his job. We are very pleased, then, to award him a special jar of Albert's Grasshopper Ointment to rub on his bad legs.

So in the spirit of our eminent namesake we can only suggest that you rub it in very hard, Mr Matthews.

JG