On Mar. 8, Matthew Bennett held a US and Worldwide auction. It included a large number of great stamps and in this post I will highlight some of the issues from US Possessions.
Above is Canal Zone O8, one of the toughest of the Canal Zone Officials (the toughest is O3 mint). It is only known as a used stamp and I am unaware that it is ever found with any cancel other than the wavy line precancel shown in the example above. O8 is overprinted “Official Panama Canal” with the Type 1a overprint which is characterized by Panama being 9mm in length compared to the standard 10mm on other issues. The stamp above is unusually well centered for the issue and was sold for the very low price of $170 against a catalog value of $650. Highly unusual to see such a nice rarity sell so low.
The beautiful cover above features a block of 4 of 18 with the upper left stamp being 18a with Zone in antique type. This very fine cover was mailed from Ancon to Boston on Jul 30, 1906. Ancon is adjacent to Panama City and was one of the major townships of the Canal Zone when it was occupied by the US. This attractive cover realized $750.00.
To understand antique type, see the image below.
In normal print the points at the end of the Z and E are vertical. In antique type as shown above, the points are slanted at 45 degrees or so.
This cover includes a #19, 2 #16′s and 1 #17 used in combination on a registered cover. This cover was mailed from Ancon to New Jersey on April 26, 1906. It realized $260.00.
This is a really nice copy of Hi 6, the 13c dark red on hard paper. It was printed in 1865 and features the portrait of King Kamehameha. The 13c paid the 5c for going from Hi to a ship, the 6c from San Francisco to the East Coast and 2c paid to the ship Captain. The stamp shown above is XF with part of the top margin, no gum, and sold for $550.
The attractive cover above is franked with 2 59′s and 1 68. It was mailed from Honolulu Feb 3, 1894 to Floral Park NY and realized $375, a strong price.
For a nice selection of Possessions, visit my web site at http://www.brucemcadonaldstamps.com.
