Current
Auction
United StatesThe ERIVAN Collection10th AuctionH.R. Harmer Sale 3070
Tuesday, April 30, 2024
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Viewing
| Special Viewing at WESTPEX: All single lots will be available for viewing from
April 26–28, 2024 in San Francisco at the booth of H.R. Harmer and the Global Philatelic Network. |
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| Exhibition of lots in our office is by appointment only. Please contact us today to schedule a time. |
About
Us
ABOUT H.R. HARMER
Since 1940, H.R. Harmer has served as one of America’s premier philatelic auction houses. First rising to widespread prominence with the sale of the late President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s collection in 1946, our firm would go on to sell some of the most significant collections of the 20th century, including those of Alfred H. Caspary and Alfred F. Lichtenstein. Now in our ninth decade, we are more committed than ever to providing our customers with the professional service and philatelic expertise that have long been synonymous with the Harmer name.
Our History
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1940: After over two decades in London, H.R. Harmer branches out across the Atlantic Ocean and opens their New York City office. Our first sale in America, the “Cox” Collections of British Colonials, was held December 9.
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1946: The year after the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, H.R. Harmer is selected to sell the late president’s collection in a series of four auctions. The sales are major news, even appearing in the non-philatelic press of the day.
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1955: On November 15, H.R. Harmer holds the first sale of the collection of Alfred H. Caspary. It will take over 16 sales and two years to sell his entire collection, widely considered to be one of the greatest ever assembled.
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1963: The unique unused 2c Hawaiian Missionary, owned by the late Maurice Burrus, sells for a record-breaking $41,000. At the time this was the highest price ever paid for a postage stamp, and the sale was profiled in Life magazine.
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1968: The sale of the collection of Alfred F. Lichtenstein and his daughter Louise Boyd Dale begins with a catalogue of Mauritius. The Dale-Lichtenstein collection is so extensive it will be sold for the next 36 years until concluding in 2004.
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1976: H.R. Harmer is selected to sell a block of four of the Inverted Jenny on behalf of Princeton University. The block sells to noted dealer Raymond H. Weill for $170,000, then the highest price paid for a United States philatelic item.
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2005: The sale of the Richard Baron Cohen Collection represents the first major auction consisting entirely of third-party graded stamps, a practice which has become much more common in the years since.
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2019: H.R. Harmer relocates to Midtown Manhattan and commences the sale of the “Erivan” Collection of United and Confederate States Postal History. At the first “Erivan” auction the famed Alexandria Blue Boy sells for $1,000,000 hammer price.