A vast stamp collection which belonged to Lady Mairi Bury, an aristocrat who famously met Hitler and described him as “nondescript”, went under the hammer yesterday.
It is regarded as one of the finest British collections to be auctioned in the last 25 years and includes examples of every variety of Penny Black ever produced.
The sale at Sotheby’s follows the death last year of Lady Mairi, who is revered as one of the greatest ever female philatelists and an eccentric who greeted guests with a parrot on her shoulder.
The first 754 items fetched over £600,000 yesterday, including an imprimatur of a Penny Black from the first ever registration sheet in 1840, which sold for £22,800.
However, with a total of 2,185 lots on offer, the sale is due to run throughout today and tomorrow and is expected to fetch around £2.6 million in all.
Highlights include several examples of Penny Blacks – the world’s first postage stamps – including one used on the first day of official use – May 6, 1840 – which has an estimated value of £70,000.
The collection boasts stamps from all 12 plates which were used to print the 68 million Penny Blacks produced.
There is also a selection of Two Pence Blue stamps, which are much rarer than Penny Blacks as only 6.4 million were printed.
In addition to thousands of stamps, the sale includes early examples of printed envelopes and letters relating to another of her passions – Victorian sensations and scandals.
Among them is a letter posted on June 13, 1840, using a Penny Black, which refers to the attempted assassination of Queen Victoria three days previously by Edward Oxford in London. It fetched £1,140.
Richard Ashton, Sotheby’s philatelic consultant, said: “This collection is one of the finest to have been formed in recent years.
“Lady Mairi not only acquired items of considerable worth because of their rarity, but also a whole host of more humble stamps and covers that are in immaculate condition.
"Although there would have been very little that was outside her financial reach, she was far more interested in buying something that added to the interest of her collection.
“Something for £50 gave her as much pleasure as something that was £5,000."
He said the collection was particularly unusual because it belonged to a woman, despite philately being a “male-dominated field”.
Lady Mairi’s life was as colourful as her collection. She learned to fly a plane aged 11 and as a child met Adolf Hitler during a trip to Germany with her father, the 7th Marquess of Londonderry.
She later said of the Nazi dictator: “I thought, what a nondescript person. No, I'm afraid no aura of evil, no sense of foreboding, a rather quiet voice.”
Although from a highly privileged background, she served in the motor transport section of the Women's Legion in London during the Second World War and became a qualified mechanic.
She discovered stamp collecting aged eight and went on to win numerous Gold and Vermeil medals at British and international stamp exhibitions.
Lady Mairi died in November last year aged 88 having spent most of her life at her ancestral home – Mount Stewart in Co Down, Northern Ireland – which was taken over by the National Trust in 1977.
Highlights include several examples of Penny Blacks – the world’s first postage stamps – including one used on the first day of official use – May 6, 1840 – which has an estimated value of £70,000.
The collection boasts stamps from all 12 plates which were used to print the 68 million Penny Blacks produced.
There is also a selection of Two Pence Blue stamps, which are much rarer than Penny Blacks as only 6.4 million were printed.
In addition to thousands of stamps, the sale includes early examples of printed envelopes and letters relating to another of her passions – Victorian sensations and scandals.
Among them is a letter posted on June 13, 1840, using a Penny Black, which refers to the attempted assassination of Queen Victoria three days previously by Edward Oxford in London. It fetched £1,140.
Richard Ashton, Sotheby’s philatelic consultant, said: “This collection is one of the finest to have been formed in recent years.
“Lady Mairi not only acquired items of considerable worth because of their rarity, but also a whole host of more humble stamps and covers that are in immaculate condition.
"Although there would have been very little that was outside her financial reach, she was far more interested in buying something that added to the interest of her collection.
“Something for £50 gave her as much pleasure as something that was £5,000."
He said the collection was particularly unusual because it belonged to a woman, despite philately being a “male-dominated field”.
Lady Mairi’s life was as colourful as her collection. She learned to fly a plane aged 11 and as a child met Adolf Hitler during a trip to Germany with her father, the 7th Marquess of Londonderry.
She later said of the Nazi dictator: “I thought, what a nondescript person. No, I'm afraid no aura of evil, no sense of foreboding, a rather quiet voice.”
Although from a highly privileged background, she served in the motor transport section of the Women's Legion in London during the Second World War and became a qualified mechanic.
She discovered stamp collecting aged eight and went on to win numerous Gold and Vermeil medals at British and international stamp exhibitions.
Lady Mairi died in November last year aged 88 having spent most of her life at her ancestral home – Mount Stewart in Co Down, Northern Ireland – which was taken over by the National Trust in 1977.
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