Prexie Collectors Take Note - Interesting San Private Treaty Lots

I ran across this London private treaty sale on SAN and there are a large number of Prexie covers that appear to be mostly International. The link is below. Scroll down to "USA - Prexies".

https://stampauctionnetwork.com/AT/ATDEC24PT.cfm

Those lot numbers are enormous.

Oh, they are not contiguous. Whew. I thought it was going to be a long night.

Thanks for the alert.

"Session 1 of 847"

Lot 548304 caught my eye. Nice four colour franking

I don't collect Prexies, but these lots could change that. They are very interesting AND budget friendly. Win-win.

There are more than 1400 German covers listed, and not one actually fit what my collection is about.

Thank you for this link rogdcam. I found 4 covers I purchased, only one a Prexie. However I found an item I never thought I would see. As luck would have it, it was the first item on the first page I opened. Also found, for me, a nice cover from Japan as well and finally a cover with a PPIE label I had never seen before.

I have not purchased from them before, so this first time was a learning experience. I filled my cart at their website (not SAN), provided my information and hit submit. Then nothing and no way to see my order, just a promise for a confirming response. Then complete radio silence. Hours later I got the response. I also got a response from their support people saying all was going well with my order a few minutes before my confirmation. NOTE: I have an 8 hour time difference for their London office. The confirmation listed the items I could purchase and gave two methods for mailing and choice of currency payment. I was to advise which method of mail and how I would pay. Of course while all this was going on, I found another item (Japan) and they allowed me to add that to my order.

Postage was quite reasonable, $6 standard and $18 for Registered. I selected registered as I wanted the utmost security for the item I never expected to see. My four items, before shipping and costs (PayPal fee and currency conversion), was just over $100, with the good item almost half. I say this to show how much I did not want the item lost. Regular mail from Britain has never been a problem for me.

So again rogdcam, thank you for the link to thousands of world wide covers for which the Private Treaty Sale closes at 11:59 PM Sunday evening at London time I would believe.

PPG - Glad you found some items. I had never heard of this company before and was surprised at the depth of material as well as the number of really interesting items at what seems like reasonable prices. Good to know that all went well. I might have to start a new collecting area!

Once the ball was rolling, the emails from the firm were many and very professional.

They also had several items which I would have purchased, but there are limits at times to spending. Those were US items.

One of the items I passed upon did have me do some searching for history. Much to my surprise **, I learned that the economy of St. Thomas and Prince Islands [São Tomé and Príncipe] (now, Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe), was based upon plantation agricultural slave labor after the uninhabited islands were populated by the Portuguese in 1471 after the 1470 discovery. Located off the east coast of central Africa, it grew to be both agriculturally profitable as well as profitable as staging area for the African Slave trade.

**Much to my surprise was NOT the fact the islands had black slaves, but rather JEWS.

Attracting settlers proved difficult, however, and most of the earliest inhabitants were "undesirables" sent from Portugal, mostly Sephardic Jews. 2,000 Jewish children, eight years old and under, were taken from the Iberian peninsula for work on the sugar plantations.

Edit: We to were.

PPG - Very cool. Now THAT is what makes postal history so interesting IMO. The places it leads you to.

Thought I would update this topic.

I did not purchase anything from the sale but had second thoughts after it closed and so went to the Torres website. Blown away. He has what must be tens of thousands of covers listed with one of the best designed seller websites I have ever seen. Fantastic search functions that are very well organized and let you drill down with keywords etc. Pics for everything. Don't know how I missed this seller before, but I am now going to dip my toe in postal history.

PS: Hundreds of interesting, mostly International Prexie covers on the site and so much more. I saw a really cool St. Thomas to St. Croix bisect from 1903 for $30. Down the rabbit hole I go.

https://antoniotorres.com