The importance of the romanian philately
The collecting area “Romania” can be ranked amongst the most attractive of philately worldwide without doubt. Even in very early years the rare issues of this country fascinated the collectors and they were very much sought after. As there are some great rarities these stamps of Romania always ranked amongst the most valuable stamps of the world.
In this german handbook “Lehrbuch der Briefmarkenkunde” of the year 1905 Theodor Haas stated that a stamp of Romania belongs to the “top ten”-items in the world. In his chapter “Die hundert seltensten Marken nach ihrem Seltenheitsgrad geordnet” (= the hundred rarest stamps) the stamp of the first issue of Romania (1858), face-value 81 Parale, reached ranking no. 6, after stamps of British Guiana, Hawaii and Mauritius. We find the next stamp of Europe only on ranking no. 12.
For more than 150 years this area is especially attractive to collectors, not only for its great rarities, but also for its very interesting postal history, that was – of course – strongly influenced by the eventful political history of those days.
Great collectors (short version)
Great collectors eagerly tried to form important collections of the area and a few of them achieved to gain highest awards at international stamp exhibitions. Edouardo Cohen, collector, researcher and author, won the Grand Prix d’Honneur in 1953 with his collection, and in 1960 he won the Grand Prix International at Barcelona.
Mario Tomasini also achieved this level with his “Classic Romania” (exhibition in Sofia, 1969). Some ten years later collector Fritz Heimbüchler won the Grand Prix d’Honneur with his first collection “Romania 1822-72” and he could save the Grand Prix International with a modified collection. Again twelve years later collector Dr. Joseph Hackmey stood on top of the ranking at the award ceremony in Romania (Efiro 2008, Grand Prix National).
Not all of the great collectors took part at stamp-competitions. Famous collectors as Heinrich Birnbach, Alfred Caspary, Maurice Burrus, Rene Berlingin or Marcel Kottelat could achieve to form fabulous collections, but they did not exhibit these on international competitions, as far as I know. Today we can, partly, admire their collections by studying the auction catalogues (Birnbach, Caspary, Burrus).
The collection of Marcel Kottelat was bought intact by a former member of our ARGE Rumänien, as far as I know.
In chapter 3 we list collectors with important collections of Romania
Important pieces (short version)
In the first half of the 20th century the philatelic world was trilled about three unique rarities from Romania. They ranked amongst the most valuable items of philately worldwide. Already in 1901 the Reichspostmuseum in Berlin bought this phantastic registered cover from 1857, that was franked with three of the four values of the first stamp issue. This is also the only complete letter bearing a stamp with the value of 81 Parale.
In my opinion this letter is at the third place in a ranking of the most valuable items, just after the Mauritius “Bordeaux”-Cover (letter bearing both values of the first “POST OFFICE” issue) and after the Hawaii-2 Cent-Letter “Dawson” 1851 (letter bearing mixed franking with two stamps from the United States). The letter fortunately survived the disturbances of the Second World War and today is exhibited in the Museum of Communication in Berlin.
Another unique rarity with extremely rare postage stamps is the “Large Journal”
A journal of the year 1958 was sent with not less than eight stamps of the extremely rare 5 Parale WITHOUT frame broken. This piece realised a very high price in the first half of the 20th century and then came to the prestige-collection of Maurice Burrus and Tomasini. In the year 2006 this journal was sold at David Feldman in Geneva, with LIFE-connection to Monte Carlo, where the buyer of this glorious piece was succesful: Joseph Hackmey. The hammer price was Euro 700’000 plus 18.5 % premium. This journal was the first eye-catcher in the Grand Prix-exhibitions 1969 and 2008. This today is certainly the most valuable piece of Romanian philately in private hands.
The next piece of sensation is the unique pair tête-beche of the first value 27 Parale, Michel no. 1 K. It was part of the Ferrary collection and realised a very high result at its sale in 1921 (French Francs 46’000 plus premium), the equivalent then was more than GB£ 1’000, when a British Pound was worth more than 20 Swiss Francs.
This pair was on ranking 30 of the list of the most expensive pieces at all the sales of Ferrary. The great collector Arthur Hind bought that pair, later it went into the collection of the king of Romania. Regretfully we lose the trace of this rarity since 1950. The hope that this piece is still in the collection of the famous collector René Berlingin (who bought a lot of valuable stamps from King Carol), is justified, but very small. Presumably his daughter or his son-in-law (also an eager collector of stamps) would have found the pair already. Therefore we can only hope the pair will appear again, after some 72 years of uncertainty.
Version engl. 2 – hgl 2022-05-25