Spring 2022 Sale

86X1, Uniontown, AL 2c Dark gray on Gray blue, top left margin single uncancelled on local cover, February 14, 1862 pencil docketing at right, manuscript "Drop letter" next to stamp, cover with a small piece missing at top left and stamp small scissor cut at bottom right well away from design, extremely fine, 2022 Philatelic Foundation certificate (Scott $65,000)
In his 2016 monograph on the Uniontown Postmaster Provisionals, Francis J. Crown, Jr. notes the existence of only two examples of this stamp on cover. In addition to the two covers a sheet of four was discovered by the Weill Brothers in 1938; unlike the stamps on cover, the sheet is printed on white paper and is listed separately in Scott (86X2). Only six municipalities in the Confederacy issued provisional 2c postage stamps to pay the drop-letter rate: Baton Rouge, Macon, Memphis, Mobile, New Orleans, and Uniontown. Of these the Macon and Uniontown are by far the scarcest. The second recorded cover was sold in our first sale of the Erivan Collection (June 2019) where it realized $55,000 hammer (at the time it was unpriced in the Scott catalogue). With only two stamps recorded the 2c Uniontown on gray blue paper ranks amongst the greatest rarities of American philately.
Provenance: Count Philipp von Ferrary (Gilbert Sale 4, 1922)
Alfred H. Caspary (H.R. Harmer Sale 991, 1956)
Josiah K. Lilly (R.A. Siegel Sale 317, 1967)