This Department is conducted in the interest of stamp and coin collectors, and the Editor will be pleased to answer any question on these subjects so far as possible. Correspondents should address Editor Stamp Department.
Two hundred thousand sets of the 1860 issue of the Nova Scotia stamps have turned up, and the entire lot is said to have been sold to a syndicate of Canadian dealers. The find is so large that prices on this set must fall very much. The veteran dealer J. W. Scott states that fifteen years ago he purchased several hundred sets lacking the 5c. from a gentleman in Ottawa at about 50c. per set. The 5c. has been the commonest of all this issue during the past decade.
The proposed philatelic club-house in New York is probably an accomplished fact. One hundred gentlemen have subscribed $25 each to pay rent for the first year and furnish the house, which will probably be the meeting-place for all the metropolitan societies! All auctions are to be held in the club-house, which is to be a general rendezvous for all philatelists, and the centre of all philatelic matters in America.
The Geneva exhibition has been a great success. The stamps were well shown, and the local committees made things pleasant for all visitors. The exhibition closed with a grand dinner to which 125 gentlemen sat down.
There were 82 Zurich 4 rappen, 82 Geneva 10 centimes, 32 Vaud 4 centimes, shown, almost all of which were in used condition. These are the stamps worth from $100 to $200 each, but the bulk of them were in the albums of eight or nine of the exhibitors. Pastor Lenhard took the gold medal for the best Swiss stamps, Stanley Gibbons the gold medal for the best collection of any one country. He exhibited his Trinidad and St. Vincent collection, worth $25,000.
Plate No. 89 is the scarcest of all the plate numbers. Dealers offer $25 each for either the top, bottom, or side imprints of that number. It has been ascertained that 9000 sheets of 400 each were printed, each quarter sheet of 100 stamps bearing the plate number on two sides; thus 72,000 copies of this plate number were issued. Who has any? Of No. 116, which is also quite scarce, over 75,000 full sheets of 400 each were printed, probably one-half on un-watermarked paper.