Heroic stamp collectors will fight for the Andromeda collection in New York

Following on from its successful sale of the Gordon Eubanks collection a month ago, Siegel Auction Galleries is limbering up for its next auction: the unique Andromeda collection of US Banknote Issues.

This includes 267 lots of a wide range of mail. This includes domestic mail, Hawaiian mail, Danish West Indies mail and the Bassel Correspondence to Egypt and Japan to name just a few sections.

One of the key highlights is an investment-grade piece of mail from South America. This boasts a 15c Orange and 30c Gray Black  used with a horizontal strip of four Peru 1860 10c Vermilion cancelled by two bold strikes of "C38" numeral grid applied by British Post Office at Callao.

The strip and both U.S. stamps are tied by three strikes of a "N. York Steamship Oct. 12" (1875) circular datestamp on the buff cover from Lima, Peru, to Boston via Callao and Panama. It bears the sender's purple oval "Charles S. Rand, Lima, Peru. Sept. 20, 1875" sawtooth oval backstamp and is addressed in Rand's hand to Lucius L. Hubbard.

South American cover to Lucius L Hubbard

In very fine condition, this remarkable cover is the only recorded example of this combination of United States and Peru Stamps, and it is the only recorded example of the British Post Office "48" Cents Debit handstamp. It is spectacular in every sense of the word.

The sender of this cover, Charles S. Rand, served in Peru as a director of the Public Works and Development Company formed in March 1874. Rand was the author of The Railroads of Peru, published in 1873 and still in print today (an original edition accompanies the cover offered in this lot).

The cover is addressed in Rand's hand to Lucius L. Hubbard, a prominent geologist, mineralogist and bibliophile living in Boston at the time.

Once a part of the Floyd E Risvold collection, the cover is expected to bring $10,000-15,000 in the sale which takes place in New York on April 21.