Letter that could sell for £324 a word

1:49pm Friday 23rd May 2008

Comments (1)   Have your say »

One of the most valuable letters ever sent to Southampton has been put up for sale by the Queen and could fetch a staggering £12,000 - or £324 a word. The so-called Buchanan pre-paid private letter sheet cost just one old penny to post when it was sent to a Southampton law firm by a Coventry solicitor on January 28, 1840.

That was probably the most important year in British postal history because the first adhesive postage stamp, the Penny Black, went on sale on May 6 1840 - just 14 weeks after the letter arrived in Southampton.

The 37-word letter about a property transaction has been put up for sale by the Royal Philatelic Collection which - unlike the Crown Jewels and Royal residences - is privately owned by the Queen.

Her Majesty's stamp collection, begun about 150 years ago by Queen Victoria's second son, Prince Alfred, and later improved and expanded by King George V, is regarded as the world's most comprehensive collection of Great Britain and Commonwealth stamps.

Her Southampton letter sheet is expected to sell for between £10,000 and £12,000 at royal stamp dealers and auctioneers Spink at their headquarters in Bloomsbury, London, on June 12.

The letter is addressed simply to Messrs Clement and Newman, Solicitors, Southampton.

There is no street name, as Southampton was much smaller then and comparatively few people in the town received mail. Those who did were well-known to postmen.

There is, of course, no postcode either and also no stamp on the letter because it would be another three months before Britain's first adhesive postage stamp, the Penny Black, was introduced.

So the Coventry solicitor who sent the letter sheet simply handed over an old penny at his local post office (which explains the "Pd 1" mark in red ink), who then organised its 170-mile journey to Southampton, via London.

It was sent from Coventry on January 28, 1840 and arrived in London the following day.

However, it is not certain whether the letter travelled the whole way by train or some of the way by horse-drawn coach, as Southampton's temporary railway station in Northam had only opened on June 10, 1839 and the newly built Southampton station would not open until May 11, 1840.