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Auction: 15024 - Western Australia from the Vestey Collection
Lot: 86

Western Australia
1854-55 Four Pence Blue
This value, produced by lithography, was made up from positions [16-240] of the 1d. value repeated four times to make up a sheet of 240. Only the central part of the design was used, the octagonal frame being added afterwards.
There were two printings, the first made from Stone 1 before the 1st August 1854. The inverted frame and the rare squeezed transfer varieties are found on this printing. A second printing, from a New Stone (Stone 2) was made in December 1855 and used a wholly different set of 240 impressions, although the same intermediate stone was employed for both.
Imperforate Covers
1857 (5 Oct.) entire letter ex the Clifton correspondence from Australind to Malta, marked "per Steamer from King George's Sound", bearing 1d. black horizontal pair (just touched at lower right) and 4d. blue, each cancelled by void obliterator, showing "post office/Crown/australind/western australia" oval h.s. (manuscript "6/10/57" added) alongside, endorsed in manuscript "Received on Dec. 23rd a.m. and paid 3d." at lower left for the fee collected from the address in payment of postage due the Lloyd ship which carried the letter, while the reverse shows an extremely fine impression of the "agenzia del lloyd austriaco/malta" oval handstamp in blue, which is the first recorded example of this marking. One of the great classic covers and a showpiece of the collection. A peerless exhibition item. B.P.A. Certificate (2007). S.G. 1, 3a. Photo

Note: It is believed the letter was brought to Suez by a P&O Steamer, and subsequently carried overland to Alexandria, where it was put on the first departing vessel, which happened to be a Lloyd Steamer of the Trieste-Alexandria Line. It then would have transferred at Corfu for despatch to Malta.

provenance:
Frank Chadwick, May 1978
Henry Houser, June 1992

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Sold for
£15,000