A new Stamp Auction is selling more than 200 lots on December 10. 

Our partners at JC Auctions are raising the curtain on their second sale: The Crown & Dragon Auction II. 

It's open now for pre-sale bidding before a live sale in Jersey that will also be streamed online and is open to online and telephone bidding. 

That happens on December 10. 

Auctioneer Mike Hall has picked out some of his favourite stamps in the nearly 400 lots on sale. 

This visually striking error is one of his British picks. 

The final touches being put on the Post Office Tower before its 1964 completion. Despite many changes to the London skyline it remains a very visible landmark in the capital today. Image courtesy of Property Services Agency at Wikimedia Commons. 

 

You had one job

I love stamps and find them fascinating. 

But, like most philatelists I would have to admit that not many stamps are laugh-out-loud funny. 

This one is, the first time you encounter it. 

And, it's strong visual appeal - as well as its rarity - have given it real, lasting value to collectors. 

The name sums up this glitch perfectly: the Post Office Tower, Missing Tower Error. 

A very good stamp design gone wrong

The base on which this error was committed is a lovely piece of mid-20th-century stamp design. 

It celebrates a so-called landmark building that really was a landmark literally and figuratively.

The two stamps as they should appear in their smart presentation pack, celebrating a spirit of progress and optimism in Britain in the 60s. 

 

At 620 feet (189 metres), the Post Office Tower (which has also been called the GPO Tower, BT Communication Tower and other names) was the tallest building in London when it was built. 

It’s a fine piece of modern architecture. Its purpose chimed with the optimistic, tech-positive feeling of the times when it was completed in 1964 to carry communications aerials. 

But, it was also given a public face, with its famous revolving restaurant offering a birds-eye view over London from the north of its centre. 

This stamp was issued on October 8, 1965, after the tower’s completion and on the day PM Harold Wilson officiated at its official opening, but before its full opening to the public in 1966. 

Clive Abbott designed it. His bio on the Post Office’s publicity material from the time described him as “art director in a London advertising agency”, and adds that he was married to the daughter of comic Sid Field. 

His work here is a good and typical example of graphic design of the period. He won out in a design competition to supply two stamps, a 3d and a 1s 3d to show the tower in both portrait and landscape formats. 

His view, contrasting the bright, new concrete and glass of the building against its surrounding Georgian streets with emphasis from bold blocks of colour was an early favourite of the design committee and made it to the full issue without many changes. 

The Queen’s head was included as a “dominant feature” in the design brief and that’s very visible in the final stamp. 

The stamps were printed by Harrison and Sons along with 200,000 first-day envelopes and 150,000 presentation packs. 

The stamps were sold as souvenirs through vending machines at the Post Office Tower and remained on sale there well after they were no longer in common circulation, surviving until the end of the 18-month grace period for pound-shilling-and-pence stamps after decimalisation in 1971. 

In total, more than 55 million 3d stamps were printed and nearly 7 million 1s 3d. Most were “ordinary” with smaller quantities of more striking phosphor stamps used in the souvenir and gift pack sales where possible. 

So, how do we get this stamp, with its centrepiece so visibly not there? 

Missing colour 

A still from a Thames TV visit to the Harrison and Sons works in the 1970s. Stamp printing had always been a complex and technical matter to ensure secure, forgery-proof work and good-looking stamps like the Post Office Tower issue required the best tech. Image from YouTube. 

 

Missing colour errors are among the most loved stamp errors because - like this one - they are so visual. 

Printing a stamp like this was a complex, multi-stage process. 

And here, one print colour - olive-yellow - didn’t make it onto a small number of stamps, apparently because a machine error stopped the print-roller in that colour from reaching the paper.  

The mistake was quickly spotted, and just two sheet of stamps were affected. 

Extraordinarily rare 

Error stamps are usually destroyed. And most of these were. 

But of a potential 120 error stamps 45 are known to exist. 

Forty-five from a total of more than 55 million. 

Of these, 15 are used. One went onto a first-day cover. 

That leaves 30 mint, error 3d stamps. 

Of which this is one. 

Glaring error barely covers it, and, shown by a perfect twin, it's very clear why collectors so love to secure the "missing tower" for their albums. 

 

As JC Auctions tell us: “Surviving mint examples were almost always separated from their sheets, often with handling imperfections. That makes a superb unmounted mint example with full original gum, such as the example on offer, an especially desirable rarity.

“Its authenticity is reinforced by a 2001 Brandon Certificate, one of the most respected names in expertisation of British errors.

“Today, more than half a century later, the Post Office Tower missing-colour error remains one of the most dramatic, recognisable, and fiercely sought-after modern GB errors.”

Stamp auction dates released 

If you’d like this extraordinary icon of British collecting then you can bid on it now. 

Pre-sale bidding is open (you will need to register to bid) and the auction closes with a live auction, streamed online and in-person in Jersey, on December 10 from 10am. 

The Great Britain 1965 3d Post Office Tower - the famous missing Tower error, SG679a is lot 223 and has already attracted a bid of £1,400. 

It’s quite a price for the eventual winner. 

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