BUSINESS ABROAD: Just Like Mclaria

BUSINESS ABROAD Just Like MclariaWhen Stockbroker Alfred H. Caspary died in Manhattan last January, he left a $12 million estate and 50,000 scraps of time-stained paper it had taken most of his life to acquire. Caspary’s scraps of paper, worth an estimated $2,500,000, are the world’s most valuable stamp collection in existence.* This week Britain’s H. R. Harmer Ltd., the world’s biggest stamp auctioneer, announced that its U.S. office has been awarded the job of selling the collection at auction over the next three years.

Stamps v. Stinks. To Harmer, which has sold and resold more than $42 million worth of stamps, the Caspary auction will be the biggest in a series of philatelic firsts that began 61 years ago. The family-owned company was founded by Henry Revell Harmer, who collected stamps as a schoolboy, decided after taking his first job in a chemical plant that he “could do better with stamps than with stinks.” Harmer roamed the world in search of rarities, opened his first stamp auction in London in 1918. Harmer sold $56,000 worth of stamps his first season, trebled his business in the next ten years. Among Harmer customers: King George V (who sometimes squeezed the family budget to add to his priceless Commonwealth collection), King Carol II of Rumania, Alfonso XIII of Spain, and Egypt’s King Fouad (whose stamps were sold by Harmer after Farouk’s abdication). In 1954-55, its biggest year yet, Harmer’s British, U.S. and Australian offices sold nearly $2,000,000 worth of stamps.

Penny Blacks & Pigeongrams. Now a white-haired, vigorous 85, Henry Harmer still sits in on important transactions such as the Caspary auctions. Son Cyril runs the Bond Street office, while Bernard Harmer, the youngest son, is in charge of the busy Manhattan office. The Harmers, father and sons, collect stamps only for pleasure. Henry Harmer specializes in forgeries. Cyril has a collection of “pigeongrams,” letters entrusted to commercial pigeon service by 19th century settlers on New Zealand’s Great Barrier Island. Bernard collects Victorian “postal stationery,” i.e., envelopes printed with grotesque designs and slogans in praise of temperance, penny postage and peace. Says Henry Harmer: “The great charm about stamp collecting is that you can collect what you like, and you can’t lose money.”

The classic proof of Harmer’s philosophy is the Penny Black, Britain’s first postage stamp, which was accidentally postmarked four days ahead of its release date. The one stamp, sold by Harmer’s in 1929 for $140, was resold in 1951 for a record of $672, an increase of 57,435% over its face value.

The Scarcer the Better. What makes a stamp valuable? “The older they get,” says Henry Harmer, “the scarcer they get, and the greater the value.” Also, unlike most valuables, rare stamps cannot be successfully forged or price-rigged. Stamp lovers are the world’s biggest collecting fraternity; with more than 150,000 different kinds of stamps to choose from, most are philatelists for fun, and for life. “Stamp collecting,” says Bernard Harmer, “is like malaria. Once you’ve had it, you never get it out of your system.”

*The finest known collection of 19th century classics, it will probably bring the third highest price ever paid for a stamp collection. At current prices, the most valuable collection ever was that of Italian Count Philippe von Ferrari, which was auctioned after World War I for $1.6 million, about one-third of estimated present value if intact.