Lot 531 Prince Edward Island #2 3d Blue, Queen Victoria, 1861 Pence Issue, Yellowish Paper, Perf. 9, A VF And Rare Mint Single With Full Toned OG, Unitrade $4,000!

A beautifully centered mint single of this extremely rare stamp, with full, intact and even perforations and full, toned original gum. The stamp appears lightly toned overall, though it is likely not as severe as it may first appear, as the genuine stamp is always found on yellowish toned paper anyway, and the gum is usually found toned. Unitrade very carefully points out that one needs to be aware of fakes on the market that have been made by re-perforating imperf pairs of the white paper printing from 1862-1865. These are almost always identified by the very white paper, white gum, and also by the fact that the perforations appear too "perfect" and usually look as though the stamp was cut along the perforations with scissors. 

If you look carefully at the perforations on this example you can see very slight imperfections in the alignment of the holes, which is a characteristic common to the genuine stamps of this issue. The gauge is also exactly 9 on all 4 sides. 

You will have to look long and hard for a better genuine example of this stamp with gum, as most of the examples I have seen on the market, except one single example sold in 2009 by Sparks Auctions in their 4th sale (lot 677), and a few others are very likely fakes made from the later imperforates. 

2022 Unitrade Cat. $2,000 for VF plus 100% premium for OG, for a total of $4,000, making this the most valuable single BNA stamp offered in our auction to date. 

This example grades 77 as follows:

Margins/Centering: 50/70

Paper freshness: 2/5 (some natural toning, but paper is naturally yellowish)

Colour: 5/5

Impression: 5/5

Absence of visible paper flaws: 5/5

Perforations: 10/10