Submitted by aarAdmin on Tue, 12/14/2021 - 00:00
Most of the items in Melbourne-based Leski Auctions stamps, coins and postal history auction on December 9 – its last for 2021 – found a new home when 758 lots were offered for sale.
The top selling lot was complete collection of sovereigns struck at the Perth Mint from 1899 to 1931 (lot 52), which went under the hammer for $24,000.
A flight cover dated 17 February 1934 (lot 389) flown at the time by Australian pioneer aviator Charles Ulm from New Zealand to Australia in his “Faith in Australia” aircraft brought $13,000.
United States aviator Amelia Earhart featured among the top eight lots with a 1935 (January 11) flight cover (lot 758) from Honolulu to Oakland and marked “No. 13 of 49 covers” carried aboard the first non-stop solo flight from Hawaii to California.
Lot 285, featuring different Australian scenes and activities and part of a 1946 stamp design competition, sold for $2800 against a $500-$700 estimate – the same price that was realised for lot 628, a 1935 cover and real photo postcard posted during the visit of Dutch submarine ‘K XVIII’ while on a world tour from Holland to Java.
A ‘Velvet Soap’ advertising postcard dated August 1920 (lot 369) dropped over Melbourne by R. Graham Carey in his Maurice Farman shorthorn biplane was another good performer at $2600 – while several flight covers (lot 395) marked “The Last Flight of the Southern Cross” (from Mascot to Richmond) and signed by the seven personnel aboard, including aviator Sir Charles Kingsford Smith, brought $2400.
An Australian purple black £2 stamp was picked up by the collector for $2200, just short of its $2500-$3000 estimate.
