Hammond Innes - Solomons Seal

We fell asleep in the end through sheer exhaustion. The next morning we were up with the dawn and on our way by eight. The auction was being held in what appeared to be an old corn exchange. Two doves, left over from a Fur and Feather Exhibition, fluttered noisily through the ornamental iron roof girders. I was tired; I had had no lunch and had lost my way on the outskirts of Birmingham. We were asked whether we would be bidding, and when I said no, we were ushered to the stairs leading to a sort of gallery. But then Keegan saw us and waved us over to seats on the right of the auctioneer’s dais. ‘Reserved specially for you, dear lady,’ he said, taking Perenna by the arm. ‘You see, hardly a seat left except those we have reserved.’ He seized two glasses of champagne from a loaded tray on a nearby table and thrust them into our hands. ‘Drink that and don’t worry. We’ll be starting any minute now.’

There must have been about 150 to 200 seats in this partitioned-off section of the hall. All those who were bidding had been issued with a large numbered card and a drink. The murmur of conversation was already loud. We had only a few minutes to absorb the atmosphere of the place before the auction started, prompt on 1.30. Keegan was sitting a few feet from us. The auctioneer, a smiling, slightly florid man with a habit of pushing his glasses up into his thick greying hair, was seated on a tall chair with a desk in front of him on the dais. ‘Lot One, gentlemen please — ladies and gentlemen.’ He had a strong Midlands accent. ‘Lot Number One. I am bid eighty pounds — a hundred, a hundred and twenty, forty, sixty, two hundred — two-twenty? Going for two hundred.’

I began timing the bids: just over a minute for each lot. Prices seemed high, but then I hadn’t attended an auction for more than two years. By two o’clock every seat was taken and we had reached Lot 22. I was beginning to identify the more active dealers and the different nationalities — German, Japanese, French, Italian. Berners was there, sitting very still, not bidding. ‘I can’t follow it,’ Perenna whispered. ‘It’s so fast. And I can’t see who’s bidding half the time. A nod or a slight lift of the pen-’

‘Just concentrate on the final bid figure given by the auctioneer,’ I said, showing her my catalogue with the final bid entered on the right. In almost every case it was way above the estimate, in the case of a perfect block of six 1870 Three Halfpence over twice the estimate.

‘Why didn’t he put an estimate against our lots?’

‘He couldn’t. It wouldn’t have meant anything.’

One of Keegan’s staff, an elderly woman, was standing close beside the auctioneer. For most of the lots it was she who started the bidding. Keegan had a big mail order business. So probably had the Birmingham firm he had taken over. These were the postal bids. We reached the first of the Wyon embossed of 1847-54, an assistant displaying a single Die 2 of the 1s. deep green in mint condition. ‘Starting at four-fifty- five, five-fifty, six, six-fifty, seven — seven I’m bid, seven hundred, seven-twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty- seven-sixty. At seven-sixty.’ The little ivory knocker fell. I was waiting now for the £5 block. The estimate was £3,800. It made £5,500. ‘Lot Seventy-three-’ We had reached the collections. They went equally fast. At 3.27 the auctioneer announced, ‘Now we come to the Lot many of you have been waiting for — Lot Ninety-six …’ And he glanced across at Keegan, who jumped to his feet.

‘I think I must say a word about this Lot and also the next Lot.’ He was speaking quickly, a little nervously. ‘We offer them both as seen, of course, with no guarantee that they are what we all think they probably are. I don’t have to tell you, but I will’ — a ripple of laughter that was more a release of tension ran round the enclosed area — ‘how Perkins Bacon excused their dilatoriness in delivering stamps and moulds to the Crown Agents. There was a thief in their print shop, and as Percy de Worms said, that’s a strange admission for a firm of security printers accustomed to holding banknotes and bonds. They didn’t say what he stole. It was an age when property was sacrosanct, so they probably felt they had said too much already. And now-’ He waved his hand to the assistant who was holding up the two albums, the vital one open at one of the die proof pages. ‘Now, you have this Solomons Seal ship label. You have examined it and taken the same view that I have, that this is the Jeens engraving for the five-cent Newfoundland popped into the 1854 Western Australia Penny Black Frame — otherwise you wouldn’t be here. May I simply add this, the Holland Line, for which that label was printed, is still in existence, and Miss Holland herself is here today. The two albums, originally the property of her great-uncle, Carlos Holland, are now her property, and she is selling them to provide additional finance for the Holland Line, which she now runs with her brother and Mr Slingsby here.’

He looked so distinguished, such a born showman as he asked us both to rise, that I half expected them to applaud. And then he called for Lot 97 to be displayed, adding, ‘And this is the finished label, printed from a plate cast from those borrowed dies — I say borrowed because we can’t be sure the thief stole them. Also, we do not know what happened to the plate, whether it was thrown away or melted down, or even whether it is still in existence somewhere. I can, however, assure you that this is the only surviving sheet, the others having been destroyed in a fire at a house on the island of Madehas in the Solomons. Both Miss Holland and Mr Slingsby witnessed the fire, and it was Mr Slingsby who managed to preserve this — the one and only sheet. And as regards the fire, its cause and what it destroyed, he has made a sworn statement before a judicial enquiry set up by the Papua New Guinea government to probe the cause of an insurrection on the island of Bougainville. So, here you have it, something unique in the history of stamp collecting, something that can never be repeated, with a background story of extraordinary fascination and excitement, and all of it supported by sworn testimony, which is in itself most unusual. I now leave it to you to decide what these two valuable items are really worth. Thank you.’ And he sat down abruptly, the silence suddenly electric.

‘Lot Ninety-six.’ The quiet monotone of the auctioneer’s voice seemed very ordinary and matter-of-fact after Keegan’s flamboyant piece of tub-thumping. ‘The Carlos Holland design collection, including the die proofs, at five thousand pounds I’m bid. Six anybody? Thank you, seven, eight, nine, ten — ten thousand — eleven, twelve.’ The auction area was very still. One of the doves flew over with a noisy clapping of wings. ‘Twelve thousand.’

‘And a hundred.’ It was Berners’s voice, and the bidding started again, going up first by hundreds, then by fifties. At thirteen thousand seven hundred there was a sudden silence in the hall, no movement anywhere. ‘At thirteen seven hundred then …’ The hand holding the knocker was poised for a moment, then fell. Carlos Holland’s albums — the proof of his murder of a whole ship’s company including his one-time partner — had gone to a German dealer.

‘Lot Ninety-seven. The only remaining sheet of the Solomons Seal blue ship label. Starting at five thousand pounds again — six, thank you, seven, eight, nine, ten …’ And it didn’t even pause there; it went straight on up to fifteen thousand in a matter of seconds. It was as though everybody there had been seized with a feverish determination to outbid everyone else for this second item in the Holland collection. ‘And five hundred? Thank you — sixteen, and five, seventeen-’ Suddenly there was a silence, a wary stillness where they all waited, wondering whether it was too much, the bidding too wild.