1903 VAUGHAN ESSAYS: £1 Queen Alexandra, Globe & KEVII with 'STATE OF' in left-hand tablet & a blank tablet at right proof in brown-olive on ungummed unwatermarked thin card as ACSC E12B but Line Perf 13, Cat $5000. Most of the Vaughan essays have obvious defects including tears, thins and surface abrasions. This is among the finest we have seen. Rare & superb! Provenance: Cherrystone Auctions (USA) sale of 5.9.2018, sold for US$1610. The similar £1 in The Morgan Collection sold for £5400. Arthur Gray's two £1 examples, both in bright blue ACSC E12A, sold for US$6035 and US$5175 respectively. The Australian Commonwealth Specialists' Catalogue (ACSC) states that no archival records pertaining to these stamp-size proofs have been located, but that reference to them appeared in the philatelic press in May 1903. The designs from One Penny to One Pound were for a proposed 'omnibus' stamp issue in which the name of the relevant State was to be inserted at the base. Several of the designs had the State name - usually 'QUEENSLAND' - at the base. Most, as here, had a blank tablet for insertion of the name of the State. The essays & proofs are attributed to Queensland Stamp Printer, GA Vaughan, based on a series of designs known affixed to a sheet titled "Designed and Printed at the Lithographic Branch of the Government Printing Office Brisbane/G.A. VAUGHAN GOVT. PRINTER". It is presumed that Vaughan was given the task by Senator James George Drake, who was both the Federal Postmaster-General, and a Queenslander. For legal and constitutional reasons, it was not until late 1910 that a uniform Commonwealth issue could be considered. In the ensuing years, a number of design submissions were made to the Postmaster-General's Department. None was accepted. However, in 1910, the Australian Stamp Printer, JB Cooke, contracted Melbourne engraver, Samual Reading, to produce the die for a proposed One Penny stamp. The so-called 'Fullface' design was rejected as being unflattering to the new monarch, King George V, but was nonetheless adopted for the Postal Cards and Letter Cards issued in 1911. The ACSC concludes with "All the Vaughan essays are very rare, with only one to three examples of each recorded" and notes that a high proportion of them are held in institutional collections.

Grade A+ A1 (Image1)

Estimate AU$3,000

1911 STAMP DESIGN COMPETITION: Undenominated stamp-size proofs in mauve on thin wove ungummed unwatermarked paper with designs by ET Luke of a Kangaroo ACSC E111(i)A, a Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo ACSC E113(i)A and King George V ACSC E115(i)A, each with simulated perforations, blank value rectangles at the upper corners and in a boomerang shape below the main design, Cat $4500. Superb! Provenance: 'Besancon' Part III, Lot 3736, sold for SFr2900. On 21.1.1911, the Postmaster-General, Josiah Thomas, announced a "Commonwealth Stamp Design Competition". In the four months allowed, 1051 designs - ranging from the amateurish to the highly artistic - were submitted by 533 entrants. The most prolific entrant was ET Luke, a Victorian who worked for 'The Age' newspaper and whose stamp-size reductions were printed on their premises. (3)

Grade A+ (Image1)

Estimate AU$2,000