Auction 333-341 Western Australia & Great Britain - Day 3

1840: 1 d. black, plate 6, vertical pair, letter AJ-BJ, used with 1841 1 d. red-brown, black plate 1b, strip of six, lettered CB-CG, margins all round, combined to make the 8 d. SHIP LETTER rate, tied by neat strikes of a black Maltese Cross to cover front, presumed to have originated from Hawick, Scotland (see note below) and sent to Sydney, New South Wales, with red oval "PAID SHIP LETTER – LONDON 29 NO 1841" alongside, and a manuscript "3" (d.) for the local delivery in NSW. There is a vertical filing fold through the margin between stamps CD and CE, otherwise in a very fresh state of preservation and possibly the most important and attractive franking of its kind, especially as a rare mixed combination franking to Australia. Cert. BPA (1996).
Note: The cover front derives from the famous "W.E.Oliver, care of John Irvine, Commissary General, Sydney, New South Wales" correspondence from Hawick in Scotland. William Elliot Oliver grew up in Scotland. He decided to emigrate, together with his cousin and business partner James Borthwick, to New South Wales in 1841 to establish a sheep farm. Since there was less competition for land in Moreton Bay (later Queensland), this became his main focus. Later letters from this correspondence were re-addressed to Moreton Bay, and from 1843 directly addressed to "Buaraba, Moreton Bay". After eight hard years of business in Australia, W.E.Oliver returned to Scotland as a rich man and never returned to Australia again. For more details see: "The W.E.Oliver Correspondence 1841-1843, A tale of two Scottish gentlemen in Australia", by Georg Stoermer, published in Deutscher Altbrief Sammler Verein (DASV), June 2024, pg.100 – 111.
Reference: Listed in "Victorian Mixed Franking Covers" by Ray Simpson & Karl Louis (2020), pg. 53, illustrated on pg. 36; it also features in "The World's First Postage Stamp", by Alan Holyoake, illustrated on pg. 118.
Provenance: J.B. Seymour collection, Robson Lowe 6 June 1951, lot 368; Maurice Burrus collection, Robson Lowe, 30 October 1963, lot 58; "DAISY" collection (Henry Grand), Christies 8 October 1996, lot 277; M.A.Sayeed collection, Spink May 2002, lot 2232; Alan Holyoake collection 2012/2013.