Stamp collection may sell for €3m

A COLLECTION of stamps assembled by a Northern Ireland aristocrat who died last year has been valued at more than €3 million and will be sold at auction in London later this month.

Lady Mairi Bury, who lived at her ancestral home, Mount Stewart, overlooking Strangford Lough, Co Down, was regarded as one of the world’s leading philatelists.

Sotheby’s in London will sell her huge collection of more than 2,000 items. The sale gets under way on November 24th and is scheduled to last three days.

A spokesman described it as one of the finest postage stamp collections to appear on the market in the last quarter of a century, “both rare in content and in impeccable condition”.

The collection includes many sought-after stamps including examples of the world’s first postage stamp, the Penny Black. A highlight of the sale will be a Penny Black used on the “first day” of official use, May 6th, 1840, which alone is valued at up to £70,000. The combined lots have an estimated value of “in excess of £2.6 million” – about €3 million.

Richard Ashton, Sotheby’s worldwide philatelic consultant, said the sale was “causing a lot of excitement in the specialised stamp world”. He said Lady Bury “went into the most incredible detail”.

“Even though she could probably have afforded anything that took her fancy, she would seek out things that added to the interest of her collection, often deriving as much pleasure from a £50 item as from a £5,000 item.”

Asked about potential bidders, Mr Ashton said: “Stamp collectors can be hard to spot but very often collectors are from the legal, medical or accounting professions, people who lead stressful lives but cannot afford to take a drink at the end of a long day because of the trials they will undoubtedly face in the morning.”

He also observed that most stamp collectors were male and that “lady philatelists are a much rarer phenomenon”.

Lady Bury, who died last November aged 88, began collecting stamps when she was eight. She was also well-known for her interest in gardening and racing. Her horse, Fighting Charlie, won the Ascot Gold Cup twice.

She was the daughter of the 7th Marquess of Londonderry. As a teenager she visited Germany and met Adolf Hitler, whom she later recalled as “a nondescript person”.

She served in the transport section of the Women’s Legion in London during the second World War. Following the Belfast Agreement, she switched her political allegiance from the Ulster Unionist Party to the DUP.

The gardens at Mount Stewart were handed over to Britain’s National Trust in 1957. Although she lived there until her death, Lady Bury also handed over the house (described in the visitors’ book by Queen Alexandra as “Beautiful place, but very damp”) in 1977.

Both the house and gardens are among Northern Ireland’s most popular tourist attractions.