[press release]
Mystic Stamp Company Buys Unique $1 Columbian Stamp Sheet
For display at NY 2016 stamp show. Will offer for sale.

On March 22, Mystic Stamp Company bought a unique $1 full sheet of 100 stamps from Columbian Stamp Company for an undisclosed price.

Mystic will display the sheet at NY2016.

The sheet is unique, and one of the most valuable US stamp items.

The sheet lay hidden for decades. In 1893, a wealthy Englishman visited the Chicago World’s Fair. He bought 10,422 Columbian stamps for $1,313. He must have really liked the fair! Two sheets of 100 $1 Columbians were part of his purchase. He kept the stamps until his death almost 60 years later. In 1954, HR Harmer of London auctioned the stamps. Famed rare stamp dealers, the Weill Brothers, paid $37,100 for the complete group. The Weill’s showed the full sheet in 1976 at the international stamp show in Philadelphia. Now, 40 years later, collectors can see the rare sheet at Mystic’s booth at NY2016.

Also purchased were 11 other Columbian stamps, all in full sheets of 100. Included are the 50¢, 30¢, 15¢, 10¢, 8¢, 6¢, 5¢, 4¢, 3¢, 2¢ and 1¢ stamps. Presumably all originated from the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

All 12 sheets were displayed at the Smithsonian National Postal Museum some years ago.

The vast majority of Columbian sheets are 50-stamp subjects, as the smaller sheets fit in postal clerk drawers. A small number of “double sheets” of 100 were sold in Washington, DC, and Chicago at the fairgrounds.

In 1999, Columbian Stamp Company sold the second sheet of the $1 Columbian. That sheet was broken into singles and blocks, leaving one remaining sheet.