Stamp of approval

KEVIN STENT/Sunday Star-Times

PRICEY STAMP: John Mowbray displays the 1935 Prussian Blue King George V Silver Jubilee stamp which went on auction yesterday.

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A humble civil servant's lifetime worth of stamp collecting has fetched more than $350,000 at auction.

The extensive collection of Wellington stamp enthusiast David Jarvis, who died last year, went under the hammer in the city yesterday.

Auctioneer John Mowbray said the final sales total was still to be calculated, but was likely to be between $350,000 and $400,000.

He said Jarvis, a bachelor, had a "lifelong passion" for stamp collecting and had amassed an extensive collection of both New Zealand and British stamps.

The top seller was a British 1935 King George V silver jubilee two and a half penny stamp which was sold to a British buyer for $16,100, well over the pre-auction estimate of $10,000.

Mowbray said the top bidder was a London dealer.

He was unsurprised by the interest, given only 69 of the stamps were known to have been produced.

"Only one sheet was issued, they are exceedingly rare . . . there were a lot of disappointed people," he said.

The other expected draw card, an 1885 [PndStlg]1 Queen Victoria stamp, also from Britain sold for $8100, which was well below the $10,000 that was hoped for.

Mowbray said bidding was "fierce" on the New Zealand and Commonwealth sections of the collection, with the top selling New Zealand stamp an 1885 red one penny which went for $7000.

Mowbray said while the Jarvis collection was not the largest stamp auction seen in this country, it was one of the biggest from a single collection.

"It would be the largest single vendor auction. In October 2007 we had an auction which sold for $1.2 million, but that was 200 people's stamps."

- © Fairfax NZ News