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Auction: 11027 - The Chartwell Collection - Great Britain Line-Engraved Essays, Proofs, Stamps & Covers Part 1
Lot: 1218

1841-53 One Penny Red-Brown Imprimaturs Plate 12, TK-TL rejoined pair in deep red-brown showing the plate number and part of the margin inscription; fresh and fine. TK with manuscript "12" in the margin and TL with the edge of the margins trimmed. A remarkable and important reconstruction Estimate £ 1,800-2,200 24 stamps removed from the imprimatur sheet, AL (Royal collection), SB-SL and TA-TL provenance: TL; Earl of Crawford, Colonel A.S. Bates, December 1934, J.B. Seymour, June 1951 Heading before this lot Imprimaturs An impression of each new printing plate was required to be made on watermarked paper and submitted to Somerset House for approval. This was called the imprimatur sheet. Once approval had been given, this sheet was stored in the archives. During the 19th century a number of stamps were officially removed from each sheet as gifts to important people. Around the year 1900 three of the corner copies were removed from each sheet and made into presentation sets. One set was given to H.R.H. The Duke of York (later King George V) and remains in the Royal collection. The second set was given to the Earl of Crawford, which later passed into the collection of Col. A.S. Bates, his collection being sold in 1934. The final set being given to Leonard H. Clark. This final set did not change hands until after the death of the owner and was sold by auction in 1946 The imprimatur sheets often show shade variations to the issued stamps. The sheets of Line-engraved are all without gum. The corner examples, showing the plate number, are particularly prized, there being only two examples from each sheet available in private hands. These command a significant premium over the normal examples

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