Highlights from the auction include important items from Gummesson’s grand prix d’honneur exhibition of Finland at Melusina 1963.

Several of the sale catalogs focus on Germany and related areas, including 741 lots from the Ludwig Trippen collection of Germany from 1849.

In 1916, the United States was not yet formally a participant in the war, but the economic difficulties of the global conflict had begun to hit home.

U.S. reissued stamps, distinguishable from the originals mostly by their proof-like impressions on hard, white paper, were offered for sale to collectors.

In times of need, typewriters, rubber stamps, upcycled ephemera — anything that can produce a recognizable impression has produced a stamp.

A high-franked cover from the pre-unification state of Baden, and a parcel card from the soon-to-be-lost colony of German South West Africa led the sale.

The Clipper City collection of superb U.S. stamps, and more revenue stamps from the Inman collection, will be offered Sept. 19-20 at the Siegel galleries.

The auction will take place Sept. 13-14 at the Cherrystone galleries in New York City.

A featured cover in this auction is a three-color franking on an 1862 letter from New York to Hitchin, Hertfordshire, England.

A highly desirable variety was spotted lurking in plain sight by a sharp-eyed philatelist browsing the Siegel 2017 Rarities of the World catalog.

One of the more remarkable items was a French “ballon monte” cover from the siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian war.

The stamp featuring Hepburn was to have been part of a 2001 German semipostal set featuring international film stars.

Attention bargain hunters: Many of the single stamps and sets are offered by Rasdale with minimum bids far below the established Scott catalog values.

The auction features United States and worldwide material, including stamps, postal history and essays, specialized Canal Zone and Scandinavia, plus more.

The sale includes 19th- and 20th-century issues with back-of-the-book material, postal card essays, carriers and locals, encased postage, and more.

A May 6, 1840, first-day cover of Great Britain’s famous Penny Black, the world’s first postage stamp, will be offered during the July 25 public auction.

The blockbuster attraction of the sale was several lots made up of “Farley’s Follies,” the imperforate, ungummed sheets.

It was a row over a tax stamp in the 1760s that started the process that led to the American Revolution. But that was not America’s first stamp, either.

The top item of the Sparks' sale was an imperforate block of 12 of Canada’s 1903 2¢ King Edward VII definitive.

Not surprisingly, Hungary’s history is mirrored in its stamps, and you can get a pretty good grasp of the narrative through its complex philately.