It looked like a routine valuation, when a customer recently consigned a modern British mint stamp collection to auction with us. The stamp valuation team receive similar collections every day and the customer was expecting it to sell for a typical price.
Luckily for them, a vigilant member of the valuation team sorting through the collection noticed that one of the booklets, the 2006 Victoria Cross Prestige booklet, was missing the bronze Queens Head on one of the pages of stamps. Errors in recently issued stamps are very rare and this was clearly very interesting. Further research revealed that the error has only recently been recognised and included in the Stanley Gibbons catalogue at a price of £18,000 for the single pane (SG 2659ba), it’s still not clear how many booklets with the error exist or have been discovered.
Naturally the customer was delighted when he was told about the find and even happier when he learned about the rarity & value of the booklet. The booklet is going to be offered in a forthcoming auction and the customer is planning how to spend his unexpected windfall.
If you have a collection to sell and want to make sure that it realises its full potential then contact the stamp valuation department to organise a valuation.
