POST SALE REPORT
The Gilbert Wheat Collection of G.B.Victorian stamps on cover
“Probably the most attractive and interesting auction catalogue we have seen for years” was the comment of one of our buyers on June 10th in our Derby Salerooms.

Gilbert Wheat’s collection was outstanding for quality, the destinations and the rarity of many of the frankings, making some of the covers “Must Haves” for the serious specialists.

The sale opened with a few pre stamp items and then an early “star” was the 1/- + 6d embossed franking to Madeira at £1495 (18), followed by an 1855 cover to Paris, the quadruple rate being paid by a block of 4 of the 4d deep carmine at £2760 (34). An 1860 cover to Corfu at 1/- rate reached £2070(49) and then an outstanding 1858 cover to Moscow with 1/- block of 6 and a pair plus 1d stars and 2d blue was taken to £4370 (61). It was a slight surprise that the 1865 cover to Rome with a possibly unique franking of a block of 8 of the 9d bistre reached only £1955 (109) but the back cover illustrated cover from Gosberton to Ohio (Est £750) made a healthy £1840 (118).

It was soon eclipsed by the £5290 paid for the 1880 Registered internal cover franked with a 2/- brown, and other adhesives, an apparently unique usage
(136A), followed by £4140 paid for the beautiful 1874 cover to New York with a strip of 3 5/- rose, 2/- blue, 1/- green a two x 4d vermilion (180). Another very pretty cover was the 1878 cover from St Andrews to the USA with 8d orange, 4d sage-green and ½d plate 11; estimated at £750, it made £1092 (236).