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Old mail item with rare postage stamps from Erivan Haub's collection
Photo:
picture alliance / dpa / Heinrich Koehler Auktionshaus GmbH & Co. KG
A series of auctions of parts of one of the most valuable stamp collections in the Federal Republic is set to end this Saturday (March 23rd), at least in Germany, after around five years. Stamps and letters from former German states belonging to the former Tengelmann boss and billionaire Erivan Haub, who died on his farm in Wyoming in 2018, are once again going under the hammer in Wiesbaden. In the same year, his eldest son Karl-Erivan disappeared during a training holiday for a traditional Swiss ski race in the Alps.
The Heinrich Köhler auction house, which claims to be the oldest stamp auction house in Germany, was commissioned with the auction. Around 160 lots from Haub's collection will be auctioned again on Saturday - historical stamps, letters and telegrams. There was initially talk of the last such auction in Germany in September 2023. But there are still parts of the billionaire's extensive collection left.
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Photo: A3778 Fredrik von Erichsen/dpa
Haub stamps are also expected to go under the hammer in New York and Zurich in the coming months. The total value of the billionaire's lots sold in five countries at more than 30 auctions within five years is estimated to be in the double-digit million range.
Haub, who once ran one of the largest grocery stores in the world, began collecting stamps as a child, according to the auction house. In the 1950s, he bought the “Black One”, Germany’s first postage stamp, at his first auction in Hamburg. Later, the then Tengelmann boss acquired many rarities, such as the first postage stamps from former German states and Zeppelin mail receipts. Also this Saturday, more than 170-year-old “Black Ones” from Bavaria are expected to find new owners in Wiesbaden.
mik/dpa