Did you know?
Page 2 & 73, lot #217
In 1928 a set of four values was issued in the Kingdom of Italy to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the birth of Emanuele Filiberto I, Duke of Savoy. Of the 30 centisimi denomination one sheet of 50 got the center print upside down.
This sheet was sold in Bologna and only two stamps with original gum have survived. No covers have been found, but one card uniquely features this error. Otherwise a small number exists cancelled in Bologna as well as some unused without gum, which probably have been on covers and escaped from being cancelled.
The copy presented here, considered the best of only two known with full original gum, is one of the greatest rarities from the Kingdom of Italy.
Scinde Dawk & Feudatory States
Page 44, lot #114-172
Below you will find an exclusive offer of selected Scinde Dawk items as well as from Feudatory States, single items and exceptional collections, exhibition mounted in an old-fashioned way, mostly untouched.
It originates from a very old estate, untouched for more than 40 years, of a very prominent and knowledgeable philatelist. He was buying mainly from well-established British auction houses like Robson Lowe, Stanley Gibbons, Harmers and others, all the way back to the 1960s.
We are very happy and proud to have been entrusted this unparalleled selection of exhibition collections and rarities. Our explicit thanks to the family members for their confidence. Welcome to all old and new clients to study and enjoy this outstanding section.
The Gary T. Athelstan Collection
Part 3
Page 246
Gary on one of his visits to Iceland
Gary was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1936 and started collecting at an early age. His interest began with his Icelandic grandparents. His grandfather came from Akureyri and his grandmother from Seyðisfjörður.
Gary has a PhD in psychology and his career was as a professor at the University of Minnesota. His interests were helping people with physical disabilities as well as with psychological and vocational issues. He lectured at the University of Iceland as a visiting professor in the 1980s on these topics to help develop care for disabled people.
He also travelled to Iceland to visit relatives, to play in bridge tournaments and to explore the country. His great-great grandfather was the founder of the Good Templars organisation and his home is kept as a museum in Akureyri.
In addition to collecting stamps, coins and banknotes, he also enjoys fishing, bridge, and travel. He is married to a second generation Hungarian-American, which got him started also on collecting Hungarian philately.
We are very grateful to Gary and his wife, Gail, for entrusting us these vast and amazing collections. It is a great pleasure for us to present these fantastic collections from this exciting island, brought together by Gary for many decades and covering most areas of philately in extreme depth.
Please enjoy!
'The Red Collection of Iceland'
Page 269, lot #1460-1511
Douglas Storckenfeldt
Our friend Douglas has built the best and most comprehensive collection of classic Iceland ever. He has exhibited it all over the world for more than two decades, being awarded countless Large Gold Medals and even a FEPA Grand Prix at Italia 2009 in Rome.
Not so well known, is that Douglas as a very young man already in the 1970s started to build a collection based on the 20 aur stamp from 1925 showing the National Library building in Reykjavik.
He bought everything he could find as long as it was beautiful and in good condition. Numerous covers with various cancellations including many ship letters and other unusual postal matters, proofs etc.
It became known among collector friends as “The Red Collection”. Part of the collection was once exhibited in non-competition at a special event in Belgium, organised by the Club de Monte-Carlo.
After 50 years together with his red friends, Douglas has decided to let other collectors get a chance to enjoy them. We are very happy to have been entrusted these small gems and invite you to study it, and of course to take part in the bidding if you so wish.
Ólafur N. Elíasson
Page 277, lot #1512-17 and more
Ólafur N. Elíasson
Ólafur, who sadly passed away at the end of last year, was very well known among collectors and contributed strongly with research and his knowledge of Icelandic philately, especially in the field of postal history and cancellations.
Besides participating in several book publications, covering all periods of postal history, he wrote many articles in various media. For the Facit catalogue he wrote an inestimable article “A short introduction to the Early Postal History and Stamps of Iceland”, which was published in FACIT Special 1997-98 and a few years onwards. It contained all early postal rates including many new discoveries from postal archives.
He had a broad knowledge and was especially interested in the issue Gullfoss 1931-32 and its rich variety of cancellations, which is proven in some of the collections and lots offered here.
We thank his family for entrusting us his exciting collections from various periods and areas. They are all marked Ex Elíasson.
Christian Auschra
Gold Medal Collection of Åland
Awarded Gold Medals at
NORDIA 2015
FINLANDIA 2017
STOCKHOLMIA 2019
IBRA 2023
TRELLEBORG 2023
HAFNIA 24
ULM 2025 ”Golden Posthorn” German Champion
Separate Catalogue #248, lot #2001-2149
Christian Auschra
Introduction by Mårten Sundberg
It was incredibly enjoyable and interesting to follow Christian Auschra's development with his extraordinary Åland postal history collection, which in my opinion would have been worth an international gold medal. The tragic news of his untimely death on 11 June 2025 came as a shock.
Christian was so enthusiastic and committed to constantly improving the collection and searching for new acquisitions. On several occasions, he emailed me links to interesting Åland items that I had not seen myself.
Lots 2146–2149 in the catalogue show how much he loved his Åland material, that he had kept all this that was not needed in the exhibition collection. Even long after Christian had decided that the exhibition would end with the introduction of the UPU in October 1874, he kept the more modern material.
Christian Auschra became interested in philately in 1980 and began collecting Åland stamps when the province got its own stamps in 1984. The following year, he exhibited his first collection in the youth class at an exhibition in Germany.
In 1988, he visited Åland for the first time on a bus trip organised by the Nordic collectors in the Forschungsgemeinschaft Nordische Staaten. After that, he decided to focus on Åland postal history and, in the same year, bought some old Åland letters from Werner Filmer, a successful collector of Finnish postal history.
Another prominent German philatelist, the late Wolf Hess, advised him to expand the section with transit letters in order to achieve gold internationally. There are not enough rare letters to, from and within Åland.
I remember when Wolf Hess commented on Christian's collection at FINLANDIA 2017, where it won gold. The title referred to Åland as ‘a postal hub in the Baltic Sea’. ‘The postal hub’ is what it should be, Hess emphasised. After FINLANDIA, Christian travelled home via Åland and handed over copies of the collection to the cultural history museum.
It was like Christmas Eve for Christian at Postiljonen's sixth auction of Rolf Gummesson's Finland collection in March 2019. But he had to pay for the Christmas gifts himself. When the Åland material was auctioned, Christian won 12 of the 13 lots he bid on.
I and many others believed that the collection was ripe for a large gold medal at HAFNIA 24 in Copenhagen, but it ended up with 92 points and another gold medal. The judges had comments on the structure and criticised, among other things, that the very strong section on postal services in the Baltic Sea in 1854–1856 during the Crimean War had been placed last in the exhibit. Paradoxically, Wolf Hess, who was also an experienced international juror, had earlier suggested exactly that placement.
But Christian took up the challenge. In January 2025, he sent me copies of the entire collection, eight frames, with a number of details improved, and wrote that he was considering a new structure.
At the postal history exhibition in Ulm, Germany, in October 2025, the collection was displayed in category 1: Postal history before the founding of the Universal Postal Union (UPU). The Åland collection won the top prize, a “Golden Posthorn”, and Christian was posthumously named German Champion in his category.
Mårten Sundberg