My first article which kicked off our COVID-lockdown era Digest emails back in April 2020 was about the Postage Stamps of Mafeking. I looked through the London Philatelist archive to find articles and letters that were being published contemporaneously back in 1900 during the time of the Boer War. And now we have come full circle with news of a new discovery that we are offering in our June 2026 auction series.
I was recently contacted by a client who was had found a collection of Mafeking for sale in an auction and he asked me my opinion on a 6d on 3d with inverted surcharge (fig. 4) inside it. I was sceptical at first as the sizing of the lettering in the cancellation seemed off, but thought that it could have been an optical illusion with the phone image. Only 5 examples of this variety had been previously recorded, although 6 must have been printed as that was the printing setting (see my previous article on how to identify the positions of the overprint within the setting). I had the images of four of the known examples including one from the Royal collection which I haven’t been able to get permission to show sadly (but it can be found in The London Philatelist, June 2008 p.168 when a selection of Southern Africa stamps were shown at the Royal).
The first (fig. 2) was last sold in public auction (as far as I can find) in the Harmers London sale of Mafeking back in 1994 for CHF25,300 (all prices including premium). The second (fig. 1) was last sold as part of the John Ineson Scouts collection by Grosvenor in 2023 for £24,800. The third (fig. 3) was sold by Corinphila as part of the “Besançon” collection in 2019 for CHF50’820. Excitingly as you can see illustrated below, this new discovery (fig. 4) adjoins pretty perfectly the example sold by Corinphila (fig. 3). The only example I haven’t mentioned (fig. 5) seems to have been last sold by Harmers London back in April 1970.
It’s highly likely that all 6 stamps belonged to the same Telegram piece. They all have the same MR 30 1900 cds of the first day of issue. I’ve also been able to determine the position of each stamp in the setting of 6 which are noted in the captions below. As mentioned before, setting 3 is not illustrated below as it is the example in the Royal collection.
This major rarity of South Africa is lot 11654 in our upcoming auction series on 16th to 20th June, and is estimated at £30’000 to £40’000.
You can view this and all of our Mafeking lots here in our upcoming GB & British Empire auction, which this section will feature on Wednesday 17th June in part 2 of the British Empire.
Fig. 1, setting 1
Fig. 2, setting 2
Fig. 3, setting 4
Fig. 4, setting 5
Fig. 5, setting 6