Auction #4 World Coins & Medals + Specialized Holyland Postal History

Our sale features a large selection of important pieces of postal history; our numismatic offering is smaller than usual as we had to set aside a large collection of ancient and medieval coins pending the receipt of our antiquities license (whose receipt is pending almost a year). Nevertheless, we begin with a small but high caliber selection of world coins and medals, including a series of high grade Italian 19th & 20th Century silver coins and some Judaic medals including the rare “Judea Restituta” medal commissioned by Yehuda Arazi (1946), and many lots of silver coins.

Our philatelic offering is phenomenal: our selection of WWII postal links with Palestine includes mail sent at the moment the War broke out, including a stunning cover to Poland 3-09-39 refused service and enclosed with a rare mimeograph from the Jerusalem censor announcing the cessation of communications with Germany, a cover from the Latvian foreign ministry sent a day after the installation of the pro-Soviet government, Red Cross 2-way correspondence mail with Nazi Germany, mail from France and to Poland during the various stages of the 1939-40 campaigns, mail from Aden and Iran, mail to the Shanghai Ghetto, and more.

We are honored to represent fine pieces of “service suspended” mail of the Arab-Israeli conflict from a Large Gold collection, whose degree of detail reveals the fascinating story and intricacy of politically-charged postal routings, and includes pieces with rare service suspended cachets of various Arab countries, Israeli service-refused markings, Cold War 'postkrieg', mis-directed mail (to Israel or Arab states) including a cover from India to Iran which was routed via Israel, an incredible pilot-signed “hi-jack” cover from flight BA870 (1974), mail from the 2nd Intifada and more – many pieces the sole examples known; a world of history unto itself.

We are also proud to present a meticulously assembled 50 year-old collection of British military mail and postmarks from Egypt in WWI, including some very rare censored pieces (the “circle E” and undocumented “OET #4 Censorship” markings), a series of undocumented postmarks including some pre-dating the known dates of establishment of certain army post offices. Additionally we offer key German & French Palestine-related covers: a picture postcard marked by a rare handstamp of the French High Commissioner for Palestine; registered letters from Militär-Mission Feldpost 4. Armee, K. D. Feldpoststation 372, Deutche Feldpost 663, FELDPOST MIL. MISS. BIR-ES-SEBA – and more.

Drawing upon what is reputedly the largest collection of Jerusalem postmarks – and one of only 3 such in the world - In the area of postmarks, we offer a wealth of materials from rare and even undocumented cancellations from Jerusalem and Haifa, a proof strike of the very rare 21-02-1949 first Israeli Jerusalem machine cancel – possibly the rarest of all Israeli cancellations, full strikes of Talavera Barracks, Jerusalem-Lydda TPO and more. Similarly, our Holyland forerunners are studded with key postmarks: Ottoman AIOUN CARA, JAFFA7 (#831), violet QUARTIER ISRAELITE w/date (#753v); Russian rare blue JAFFA (#614); French JAFFA (#311); plus “Tempel-Kolonie”, “Aus Sarona” & “RISCHON-L'-ZION” (#153/St-708) colony cachets – and more.

Our Mandate postal history offering includes very rare rates, such as the period-3 1m printed matter rate, a 1938 airmail from Haifa to Tel Aviv, a gem period-2 postcard franked by the cobalt-blue Ba2 EEF frank, and more. Among Israeli state postal history we offer incredible PEDI covers: a registered cover, a back-stamped cover, and the highest numbered cover with both type I and II cancellations.

Our selection of taxed mail is probably unparalleled, with many exquisite pieces of domestic and overseas mail taxed with high frankings or taxed for unusual reasons, including a couriered “poste restante” cover taxed for being return addressed in the same locale as the PR service requested, 1948 mail with 'provisional' tax frankings, interim-period mail with interim frankings as PDs, revenue-label franked mail (both taxed and accepted!), postage dues from recent inflationary periods, currency transitions, mixed frankings and much more.

The philatelic selection is rounded out by many airmail covers and special surface mail representing important routes and bearing special frankings, including full tabs. Our next sale will take place later this summer – and by then the full force of our numismatic offering will featured.

Bidding in Our Auctions

In light of numerous requests we have received to run “live auctions”, this sale of 641 lots will be a combined mail and timed ('live') auction. It will open on April 19th and end May 17th. Some of the lots in the sale will be sold in the usual manner of a mail auction by receiving bids in writing on lots throughout the sale period (above) until the end of this portion of the sale (22:00 Israel time on 17 May): bidders with the highest bids will be the winners of those lots at that time; bidding-time will be extended by 5 minutes in the event bids are received within the last 60 seconds.

Other lots (202) with specially marked lot numbers ending “-LA” – will be on pre-sale display until May 17th and will go on sale starting at 22:00 Israel time on 17 May, on a 3rd party live auction site called Bidspirit.com; this will be the timed auction (without auction hall or announcer), and each lot in this portion of the sale will be displayed for a minimum of 30 seconds, during which time live bids can be submitted. Pre-sale bids can be placed on these lots in writing before the start of the sale and absentee bids in writing can be submitted during the sale itself. These lots will be displayed here, on our site (historama.com/auctions) and also on our Bidspirit site (historama.bidspirit.com): on this and our site these lots will appear static, without real-time changes in the bid level, but on the Bidspirit site the bid status of these lots will update in real-time before and during the sale – and the sale itself will be conducted on our Bidspirit site only.

Both portions of the sale run in the same manner: the bid level increases by steps, so that if a person submits a high bid relative to the present level, the present level will only rise by 1 step and the rest of that person's high bid will be kept in reserve by the auction program in order to counterbid on his behalf if competing bids are subsequently placed.

As is our policy, in the mail auction opening bid levels are flexible and we can accept bids that are as much as 20% below that level provided there are no unpublished reserves which are above that level. In any event, reserves will never be higher than the opening bid level. As Bidspirit is unable to process bids below the opening level (for the live auction/time auction), the displayed opening bid levels will be the minimum acceptable bids.

Our auctions are designed to enable bidders to make the most of their budget, while aiming to save them money: last-minute bid increases can be selected (for some or all bids); a bid-budget can be specified, to protect bidders from financial over exposure – and here, bidders can also specify their order of preference among the lots they win, to secure those which are most important to them.

We look forward to having you at our sale and wish you good luck with your bids.