The other two surviving Mauritius Ball covers reside in the Royal Philatelic Collection owned by Queen Elizabeth II and the Thomas Keay Tapling collection held at the British Library.

Among the rarities in the June 12 session is a used pair of Canada’s iconic 1851 12-penny Black Queen Victoria on laid paper.

The auction series begins Monday with part 4 of the J. Chalhoub collection of Egypt.

Part 5 of the massive Erivan collection of U.S. and Confederate States postal history will cross the H.R. Harmer auction block June 24.

Highlights of the auction include inverted center errors, Bank Note special printings, scarce coils, Official and newspaper stamps, and more.

A color trial in red-purple of the rare unissued British stamp known as the Tyrian Plum will be offered for bidding in the June 2-3 auctions by Spink London.

With such an expansive variety of items available, bidders are sure to find something of interest to add to their collections.

It will be interesting to see the commentary from the general press as well as from the stamp community after the June 8 sale.

Other notable items in the auction include Italian offices in China, Krakow issues from Poland and more than 300 lots of Russian zemstvo stamps.

Collectors in pursuit of graded stamps will find almost 200 scattered throughout the catalog for the May 19-20 sale.

While many of the individual lots in this sale are presented with estimates of £100 or less, there are also some rarities that will cross the auction block.

The auction opens with a solid group of worldwide items featuring single stamps and covers, as well as a number of larger lots.

Among the 549 lots to be offered are some of the rarest U.S. stamps in existence.

The main catalog for this sale includes an extensive selection of material from Germany.

A total of 544 lots will be up for bids during Spink’s sale of the Blanic collection of Nyasaland and Rhodesia.

Among the countries featured in the sale are Austria, France and colonies, Germany, Italy and colonies, Poland, Russia and Great Britain.

Specialized collections of surcharged postal stationery, precanceled postal cards and star cancels offer many dozens of intriguing lots for the collector to peruse.

This invert stamp is from the impressive collection of American businessman Gerald Forsythe, who purchased the error stamp for $576,000 at a 2014 Spink USA sale.

Numerous unusual varieties are found in this sale, both in the worldwide material and among the U.S. offerings.

The extensive Scandinavian offerings open with early Danish postal history and classic Danish stamps.