Auction Galleries Hamburg offers 1861 Confederate provisional cover

By Michael Baadke

In its Nov. 27-28 sale, Auction Galleries Hamburg has listed a 5¢ Confederate postmaster’s provisional stamp from Uniontown, Ala., on a cover mailed to Montgomery, some 80 miles to the east.

The 1861 5¢ green on white stamp (Scott 86X4), described as position 2 from the setting of four, is affixed to a neatly addressed blue envelope and tied with a black Uniontown circular datestamp.

In the 2021 Scott Specialized Catalogue of United States Stamps and Covers, the 5¢ green on cover is assigned a value of $15,000, with that figure in italics to indicate an item that can be challenging to value accurately.

Auction Galleries Hamburg shows the cover with an opening bid of €7,500 (approximately $8,780 in the first week of November).

The cover is accompanied by a 1994 certificate from the Confederate Stamp Alliance authentication committee and a 2019 certificate from the Philatelic Foundation expert committee, both attesting that the cover is genuine.

The cover is included in a two-day worldwide auction that also offers a number of U.S. postal stationery items with added postage stamp frankings, along with other U.S. stamps and covers.

A solid offering of German material includes a postmarked vertical pair of the black brown flat-plate printing of the 1923 1 billion mark stamp (Scott 294a). The German color description is “schwarzgraubraun,” or black gray brown.

In the 2021 Scott Classic Specialized Catalog of Stamps and Covers, this unusual variety is valued at $6,750 (in italics) for a single used stamp. For the vertical used pair, Auction Galleries Hamburg lists a €5,200 starting bid (approximately $6,090).

The pair is accompanied by a 2019 certificate from German expertizer Dieter Weinbuch.

The catalog for this auction can be viewed and downloaded on the Auction Galleries Hamburg website, with online bidding options available.

Additional information is also available on the site or from Auction Galleries Hamburg, Kleine Reichenstr. 1, 20457 Hamburg, Germany.

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