COPIES OF RARE STAMP HELD BY WHAKATANE MAN

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 13, Issue 39, 10 January 1949, Page 5

COPIES OF RARE STAMP HELD BY WHAKATANE MAN

New Zealand health stamps issued in the last few years are today not particularly valuable, but those issued during and before the depression now have a value in the philatelic world that has reached fairly high figures. Of them all the most valuable is the' 1931 issue, which features a picture of a boy. The Id is in red and the 2d. in blue. This stamp is regarded by philatelists as the rarest of the modern New Zealand stamps.

Today the value of the red Id is up to £5 while the blue 2d is £5 10s, according to figures obtained from an Auckland philatelic firm. One prominent Whakatane collector has two copies of each value. He said the reason for the scarcity of them today was because so very few were ever sold. During the depression people would not buy stamps if they could possibly help it. Only a few thousand were disposed of, a vastly different story from the 6,000,000 twopennies that were sold during the 1947 campaign. A recent discovery of two complete sheets each of the Id and 2d issues of this stamp in Christchurch caused a flutter in the philatelic world in New Zealand. Their total value has been reckoned as £2,260. But if they were all put on the market it would have a considerable affect on the present market value.

Any copies of these stamps are highly coveted by collectors as is shown by the action of a person in the South Island recently, who offered £6OO for a sheet of either the red or blue boys. So far he has not been successful.