There are stories you can't make up, and yet we experience wondrous and surprising things again and again, in life as well as in philately.
This summer, a gentleman came to our auction house, the son of a German engineer who had spent his whole life in China. A successful businessman who caught the last flight from Wuhan to Germany at the outbreak of the corona pandemic, his stamp collection in his luggage, which he had built up together with his father.
The father was a senior engineer in the construction of the steelworks in Wuhan in the 1970s and went with his young son once a month to the philatelic retail shop in Wuhan to buy stamps. The stamps of the seventies were quite good to buy, the earlier stamps of the Cultural Revolution were already scarce at that time. The little boy's enthusiasm for collecting stamps lasted for many years until 1984 when, as a young man, he locked his stamp collection in a suitcase and only opened it again in our house in Düsseldorf after almost 40 years.
He knew that his stamp collection had gained a lot of value in the meantime and we were really wide-eyed when we unpacked the modern philatelic rarities of the People's Republic of China. With expertise, father and son had acquired whole sheets and blocks of stamps in packets of hundreds. Marginal overprints and imperforate stamps that had not been on the market for years were to be found, as was the 1980 monkey in a half sheet.
We have taken great care to present this exceptional top collection of modern philately in detail and in high quality, a collection that has hardly been available anywhere in the world for years. The Wuhan stamp collection was excellently complemented by a very high-quality China stamp collection that we received from a German collector for liquidation.
The separate China catalogue attracted international attention in the autumn auction. For example, "Yenan Shrine of Chinese Revolution" in complete sheets proved to be extremely sought after; these reached ten times their starting price and were only knocked down to a persistent bidder at 50,000 euros (lot 4102, estimate: 5,000 euros). No less in demand were the 100 blocks of the "National Science Conference" in original packaging (lot 4211, knockdown: 42.000 Euro, estimate: 15.000), 100 blocks of "Galloping Horses" in original sales packaging (lot 4220, knockdown: 48.000 Euro, estimate: 20.000 Euro), as well as the legendary 8 f "Golden Monkey" in half sheet (lot 4300, knockdown of 39.000 Euro, estimate: 25.000 Euro).
If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us by phone: +49 (0) 211 550 440.
We will be happy to advise you and estimate the value of your stamps and letter items free of charge. Simply send us a message with your request via our contact form.