The collections of Mr. Leslie L. R. Hausburg, have, next to those of
the Earl of Crawford, attracted widespread attention and the unstinted
admiration of philatelists. They have hitherto dealt chiefly with the
Australasian portions of the British Empire, but latterly have been
extended to a number of foreign countries. Mr. M. P. Castle, J.P.,
has formed several great collections, as will be noted in the list of
sales which concludes this chapter, and Mr. Henry J. Duveen has one of
the three finest collections of Mauritius, including the superb "Post
Offices," both unused, from the Avery collection, and a matchless
block of four, unused, of the 1d. Post Paid, for which wonderful item
its possessor paid £1,000. These "Post Offices" are the ones which in
1910 carried the record price for this popular pair of rarities up to
£3,500. Mr. Duveen's Switzerland collection is also a very notable one,
and contains the block of double Genevas, and the part sheet of "large
Eagles" from the Avery collection, and the beautiful block of fifteen
Basle "doves," which was the subject of a recent find in Berne. Baron
Anthony de Worms is the owner of a fine collection of Great Britain and
the collection _par excellence_ of Ceylon. Mr. Harvey R. G. Clarke's
collection of New South Wales is justly celebrated, and in the less
costly countries the honours of possessing the most perfect collections
are distributed by no means exclusively among the very wealthy. In
stamp-collecting the personal search is often more productive than
lavish expenditure without personal effort.
[Illustration: THE UNIQUE BLOCK OF THE "DOUBLE GENEVA" STAMP, THE
RAREST OF THE SWISS "CANTONALS."
(_Formerly in the "Avery" Collection, but now in the possession of
Henry J. Duveen, Esq._)]
In America there are some collections of great note. That of Mr.
George H. Worthington has been referred to elsewhere. Mr. Henry
J. Crocker, a San Francisco magnate, had the misfortune to lose about
£15,000 worth of his stamps in the disastrous fire which followed
the earthquake of 1906. This included eleven out of forty-three of
his albums, but luckily his greatest work, the Hawaiian collection,
was safely in England at the time of the catastrophe. A wonderful
collection of Japanese was completely destroyed. Mr. Crocker has no
fewer than sixteen of the Hawaiian "Missionaries"; outside of the
British Museum, his is the only copy of the 2 cents, Type I.; he has
four used copies of the 5 cents, two of them being on the entire
envelopes; and there is a unique item in an unbroken strip of three
13 cents "Hawaiian Postage" on entire. Two of the stamps are Type I.
and the other Type II.; he has also an unused and two used copies of
each type. Of the "H.I. & U.S. Postage" 13 cents stamp there are two
specimens, one of each type used together.[19]
[Illustration: PART SHEET OF THE SCARCE 5C. "LARGE EAGLE" STAMP OF
GENEVA, SHOWING THE MARGINAL INSCRIPTION AT THE TOP.
(_From the collection of Henry J. Duveen, Esq._)]
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