The best bits

During the jubilee party it was already for the 39th time that we organized a club auction of motor philately. Auction compiler Gerard had again succeeded to make an item list with a lot of nice and rarely offered items, which the undersigned had to sell to the audience. And this went very well.
The auction contained a number of nice things, like some FDC's that have been made in small edition and are very much sought after, especially in England, but would also be very suitable as expansion of our own collections. A few rare personalised stamps from various countries, and a strip stamps from Calf of Man which was also desired by our secretary, who has (almost) everything in his collection.

But there were also a few "very best bits" between all items, like the "regular customer" block from New Zealand that has been discussed in newsletter 95 en 97. Off course many members were interested to acquire this block.

Another often sought item is the stamp from Guatemala with motorcycle police, 20 pieces in a row, in front of the police station in Guatemala-City. This stamp has been issued in a veeeeeeery large series (34 stamps in 3 groups), designed by Carl Marcxwordt and printed by Johan Enschede and his Sons in our own mother country (Netherlands). It has been issued to celebrate the re-election of President Ubico, who was very popular because of his reforms, on May 20th 1937. In the last group of 12 "Exterior" airmail stamps (intended to be used for airmail abroad), provided with an imprint in black of an airplane, we find our little stamp.

When I see something like this I always try to determine the brand and type of the motorcycle. It would off course be very easy to call this a Harley Davidson, but looking at the exhaust pipe and the V-engine that has been placed transverse in the frame that does not seem correct to me. The value of this stamp is not spectacular, this years catalogue prices it at € 3.50. Big problem is the fact that it is very rarely offered as loose stamp, but almost always in the total series of 34. The catalogue value of the series: € 170.00. And I have to add to this that on international auctions much higher prices are paid for this series at the moment. Altogether this makes this stamp on of the best bits in or for our collection.

The motorcycle on the Ubico stamp

Another top item is the so-called Burgos stamp. Offered in the auction as block of 4 with Express (Urgente) imprints: Pegasus the flying horse, a racing car, a train and a courier on a motorcycle.

The history behind these stamps is just as interesting as the raid to find them. And then suddenly you can find such a block in the MFN auction. Even better was that we could also acquire the same block of stamps and put it as a price in the jubilee lottery. The story behind this stamp can not be told in a few sentences, but I will tell more about it in one of the coming newsletters.

The fact that almost all items changed hands proved that the jubilee auction was a great success. Together with the lottery it made that all members present had something to admire that evening and a reason to take the motorcycle stamp albums at hand.

Hans de Kloet

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