Submitted by aarAdmin on Tue, 12/09/2025 - 00:00
Nothing like celebrity status to help sell a stamp collection – and so it proved for famous Australian wine writer, judge and vigneron James Halliday who offered his collection of South Australian Departmental stamps for auction as part of Melbourne-based Abacus Auctions December 2-5 sale of stamps, coins, banknotes, postal history and sporting memorabilia.
Introduced in 1868 in South Australia, departmental stamps were overprinted in black or red ink with the initials of the relevant organisations to alleviate concerns about the Post office’s lack of revenue or accountability from stamps sent to other government entities.
This followed concerns that stamps, particularly those with high face value, were not being used for their intended purpose – instead being hijacked for private use or redeemed for cash.
The highest auction figure of $44,000 hammer price was paid for a four-penny stamp overprinted by the Vaccination Board with the initials VN (lot 766) dated 1873.
It is the Holy Grail for collectors of South Australian departmental stamps, with four examples ever recorded, two of which are in private hands.
South Australia introduced its Compulsory Vaccination Act in 1853 and the board was disbanded 20 years later.
Perhaps the most important of the departmental stamps is the 1873 twopenny Supreme Court stamp (lot 678) that sold for $15,000, its value largely reflected in the SG lettering error, instead of SC.
The only used or unused 1/- stamp recorded for South Australia’s Colonial Surgeon (lot 235) was another winner at $12,500, while one issued for the Attorney-General (lot 26) sold for $8000.
Several sporting memorabilia items sold well including an Australian Football League Hall of Fame Legends album (lot 3803), featuring triple Brownlow medallists Dick Reynolds, Ian Stewart and Bobby Skilton, that changed hands for $5250.
A 1926 Australian Test team framed photo (lot 3580) including all the greats from that era sold for $4600, and lot 3818 – a 1997 set of Futera footballers, showcasing legendary champions Gary Ablett Sr, John Platten and Tony Locket, brought $4200.
