1905 5c “Inverted Elephant”

LIBERIA No. 62a

THE INVERTED ELEPHANT

All those who collect Liberian stamps will at once know what this number means. Merely to list it is enough to cause the heart to beat a little faster and the blood pressure to rise. This is the big error that has been, and is, on every Liberian want list, and it didn't matter how much money one commanded, the want lists have remained unfilled for almost the 70 years since this stamp first appeared. Colonel Rogers, in his authoritative “A Century of Liberian Philately” made note that Scott was the only catalog anywhere to list such a variety but that he had never seen it. He had plenty of company, for nowhere in the world was there a dealer who had it in stock, nor any collector who had a copy in his collection.

Just one exception. There was a collector who had the entire sheet of 60 of the error, all that were ever found. It is not known when it was discovered, very likely soon after it was printed in 1905 by the great English firm of Waterlow and Sons, but for certain it was a genuine printing error found in the postal stocks. The sheet still has the number 482 which means it was the 482nd sheet to be numbered. The renowned dealer, Philip Ward Jr. acquired and sold it intact to a specialist in Liberian stamps and the sheet has remained in this collection for very many years.

In a private treaty transaction through H. R. Harmer I’ve recently acquired the sheet and have broken it up. 44 copies either have been sold or are reserved for my customers, 12 are offered in this advertisement at $500.00 each. The unique corner number block is available at $3000.00.

It is quite a stamp, this handsome engraved error, and very reasonable at $500.00 a copy. It is about 4 times rarer than the Canadian Seaway Invert and almost twice as rare as the U.S.A. 24c airmail inverted centre. Liberian are not exactly on the same popularity basis as these two nations but one has only to look at the present day catalog to realize that the days when Liberian stamps were only considered juvenile collector material are gone forever. It’s rather strange that there should have been any such ideas as most of the great collectors of the past had excellent specialized collections of Liberian stamps, and why not; most were the work of the world’s foremost printers, a great number by Perkins Bacon, who back in 1840 and in the following years printed the world’s first stamp and firsts for many nations.