The William H. Gross Collection: United States Postal History continued...

5¢ Orange Brown (1b), Position 91L with huge bottom left corner sheet margins, both measure approximately 8mm, ample margins at top and right, unusual dry print at left where the sheet of paper likely began to dry before printing (drying from the outside in) and therefore failed to pick up all the ink, deeply blued paper, tied by neat red square grid cancel with matching "New-York Mar. 19" (1851) circular datestamp on envelope to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, docketing at left "Cousin Nellie New York March 12, 1851"

Extremely Fine; some tears on backflap barely nick the edges of the cover.

This is an exceedingly rare on-cover example of the 5¢ 1847 Issue with huge corner sheet margins. For a variety of reasons, very few examples of the 5¢ 1847 Issue with corner sheet margins exist. To begin, only four outer corner positions on the full plate of 200 and four additional positions from the interior columns (separated by a gutter) could produce stamps with corner sheet margins. When the stamps were affixed to letters or envelopes, the sheet margins were often trimmed off, presumably to make the stamp fit on the envelope without covering up the address. Corner-margin stamps surviving from this small original supply are very rare, regardless of condition. Of the handful of truly full-size sheet-margin copies we have located, this is one of only two on cover--the other is the superb bottom left corner-margin example currently in the Gordon Eubanks collection.

Ward backstamp. Ex Paul C. Rohloff, Marc Haas and John R. Boker, Jr. (Image)

Search for comparables at SiegelAuctions.com

Get Market Data for [United States 1b]

5¢ Orange Brown (1b), with huge top left corner sheet margins, left measures 5.5mm and top measures 6.5mm, bottom and right both with large margins, tied by blue "Baltimore Md. Apr. 24" (1851) circular datestamp on greenish folded letter addressed in blue to Mt. Vernon, Ohio, manuscript "Paid 5", heavy file folds, one of which falls near but does not touch stamp which has a few pinpoint raised indents, Extremely Fine Gem corner-margin stamp on cover and one of the largest on-cover examples in existence, ex Knapp, Gibson, Rohloff and Boker, and from our 1974 Rarities of the World sale (Image)

Search for comparables at SiegelAuctions.com

Get Market Data for [United States 1b]

5¢ Brown (1), vertical pair, large to gigantic margins including bottom sheet margin, tied by blue "Baltimore Md. May 28" (1849) circular datestamp with matching "10" in oval handstamp on folded letter to Boston, Massachusetts, Extremely Fine Gem pair, a wonderful quality on-cover sheet-margin vertical pair of the 5¢ 1847, ex Newbury, Klein and Boker, and from our 1996 Rarities of the World sale, with 1988 P.F. certificate (Image)

Search for comparables at SiegelAuctions.com

Get Market Data for [United States 1]

10¢ Black (2), Position 20R, large to huge margins including right sheet margin, intense shade nicely contrasted by tying red grid cancel, matching "Pittsburgh Pa. Jun. 4" (1851) circular datestamp on folded letter to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, docketing on back confirms date, letter with some splits and missing one leaf, which has no effect whatsoever on the Extremely Fine Gem stamp and overall beauty of the cover, ex Boker (Image)

Search for comparables at SiegelAuctions.com

Get Market Data for [United States 2]

10¢ Black (2), Position 94L with huge 13mm bottom sheet margin, large margins at top and right to full at upper left, tied by blue "Philada Pa. 10 Oct. 10" (1849) integral-rate circular datestamp with second clear strike at right on buff envelope with "Bullitt & Fairthorne Attorneys at Law & Collecting Agents Philada" red embossed cameo return card on backflap, addressed to Owingsville, Kentucky, original 1849 enclosure with printed letterhead for Western & Southern Collecting Agency, Bullitt & Fairthorne, Louisville, Extremely Fine, a striking sheet-margin 10¢ 1847 on a rare embossed envelope, ex Haas and Boker (Image)

Search for comparables at SiegelAuctions.com

Get Market Data for [United States 2]