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Auction: SW1015 - The Philatelic Collector's Series
Lot: 85

1857, 60c. blue, second type, pale shade, excellently margined on three sides and just shaved at right with missing frame line, cancelled by pen strokes on June 18, 1858 cover from Montevideo to Rocha. The entire completed the journey by the stagecoach route Montevideo-Pando-San Carlos-Maldonado-Rocha. Docket inside dated ''Mont° Junio 18/1858'' which represents the earliest recorded date for use. Minute tone spot of no significance for this rarity. An extremely desirable cover bearing this very difficult stamp, of even greater significance being the earliest recorded date for this issue, originating from the famous ''Seijó Find''. Cert. Hernández Rocha, signed Díaz Paulos. Ciardi 1A. Ex Seijó, Marcó Del Pont and Hoffmann. The "Don Anselmo Seijó" Find: Don Anselmo Seijó was a renowned collector from the end of the XIXth and early XXth Centuries. His scholarship works were well known in this period as notable advancements to Uruguayan philately. But undoubtedly, his most important grant to the fascinating philately of Uruguay was the find of the ''Piñeiro Archive''. In the XIXth a controversy arose concerning the genuineness of the "Diligencia" second type issue , as it was described by Mr. Griebert in his handbook about Uruguayan philately published by Stanley Gibbons in 1910, which was the first specialized work about this country to be produced. The Belgian dealer Dr. Moëns, supported by other chroniclers in Europe, had doubts the official nature of the 60c second type issue (''quite unreasonably'', as described by Mr. Griebert), and challenged the theories of the famous Uruguayan collector Dr. Wonner, who had found this stamp in 1866 on cover in an archive, a theory that was supported by Messrs. Vasconcellos and Durante who had found more copies in an old correspondence. In 1892, Don Anselmo Feijó had the opportunity to acquire the correspondence archive of Vicente Piñeiro of Rocha, and found three covers franked with the ''Diligencia'' second type, all emanating from the merchant Sopeña of Montevideo. This find was the definitive confirmation of the genuineness of this issue and its postal use, and brought to close a conflict which had confronted European and Uruguayan chroniclers for nearly 20 years. Mr. Seijó kept the covers in his collection and sold them some years later to three important collectors in Uruguay. One of the most important collectors in Uruguayan philatelic history, Dr. José Marcó Del Pont, described Mr. Seijó as ''a serious and respectable philatelist'', and Griebert mentions his find and illustrates in his handbook one of the two covers originating from the ''Piñeiro Archive''.

Estimate
€15,000