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the Royal Swedish General Post Office UPU Collection

This worldwide collection, based on stamps received from the UPU with some additions, was sold at auction by AB Philea on 25 November 2017 in Stockholm.

The early part was housed in two large pre-printed albums published by Heinrich Lichtenstein, a prominent Swedish stamp dealer. The Foreword is dated November 1891 which corresponds to spaces being allocated for issues to mid 1891. Later distributions, up to around 1903, are mounted either at the foot of pages, on the reverse, or on inserted blank pages.

Stamps in the albums have been stuck down, for the most part only with the upper one third of the original gum. With care they can be removed without damage but the provenance would be lost. A significant feature of the collection is the extraordinary freshness of the colours.

As expected, for the British Colonies stamps issued from the date of membership of the UPU onwards are mostly overprinted SPECIMEN whilst those of the British Dominions and of ‘foreign’ countries are generally in normal unused condition.

Further items for sale will be added to this web site over the coming weeks.

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