Don't Believe Everything You Read in The Papers

In response to yesterday's post, Scottish Stamp Collection Gets Trashed, Jim Ford, the person who lost his stamp collection, e-mailed me with the following information and comments...

"Don’t believe everything you read in the papers!

"The collection was/is possibly worth more than that on paper (sorry for the pun) as a catalogue value, as an actual value as I try to tell everybody the only way you would have an exact value would be sell them and see how much you got.

"The stamps were not outside to dry after a burst pipe! They were at the front door whist the house was being repaired after the heating engineers did not cap any pipes and the house flooded.

"Robert Murray was also misquoted, but then again it was a private collection that he had supplied stamps towards from his Edinburgh Shop. He just did not know who he was supplying to.

"The collection was mostly Commonwealth 1840 - 1948, Amongst it was several full mint sets including Variants.

"The honour of most of the collection has to go to my grandfather and uncle who collected it for over 90 years.

"The jewel of the Collection was actually American. A set of letters that covered the whole American civil war, initially 2 friends - then boyfriend/girlfriend - then the engagement and the arrangement of the wedding, all of the letters were complete, he telling her of his desire to fight in the war, going off to fight , describing battles. Her telling him the local gossip.

"Included in some of the letters from her were stamps for him to reply, hence the Washington Pinks. But a letter sent from a Union Soldier, to a New York Address with a CSA stamp on it, a novel twist.

"Some of the Letters from the collection still exist, mostly female gossip to Miss Hattie Simmons, Motville N.Y though one sheet of paper that I actually have not read is embossed with the Whitehouse, dated March 26th 1870.

"The local authority admitted in writing that they removed the stamps and the other items of furniture, it’s their insurance company that are claiming they only removed Rubbish."

Thanks Jim. Good luck with your claim.

Shown above, a 1868 Washington Pink with B-grill which was sold at auction last year for $1,035,000. Only four 3-cent stamps with this type are known to exist.

To read the orignal article in the Glasgow Sunday Mail, click here.