12-penny black to highlight All Nations’ 1,200 auction
An 1851 12-penny black specimen plate proof (Scott #3P) is expected to bring $1,000 at All Nations Stamp and Coin’s 1,200th auction this weekend. (Note: It brought $2600)
To be offered as Lot 8, the stamp has a vertical ”SPECIMEN” overprint in carmine towards the right side. It’s described by auctioneers as being in Very Fine condition.
The first issue of the Pence series, the 12-penny black was printed by the New York firm Rawdon, Wright, Hatch and Edson. The original die was engraved by Alfred Jones based on Alfred Chalon’s portrait of a young Queen Victoria that was also used on the stamps of other British colonies.
Global TV
Debt list for Gassy Jack Deighton, one of Vancouver’s founders, goes up for auction
City TV
Gassy Jack Deighton
CBC Radio
Gloria Macarenko March 8, 2019 https://www.cbc.ca/listen/shows/on-the-coast/episode/15676637
trolls on movie review website, movie reviews, UBC attack, unsung women from Canadian history, Gassy Jack document for sale, Daylight Saving Time returns, anti-SLAPP legislation, corporate ethics, construction trades code, gender and politics
Audio clip lasts only a few minutes,
find after David Eby about 1/3 of the way through show @ 1 Hour and 9 minutes approx
Gassy Jack Deighton’s debts at his death, handwritten list totalling $5,000 or so.
handwritten list of Gassy Jack Deighton’s debts
Gassy Jack Deighton Debts estate document, ex Gerald Wellburn
Lot 145 in All Nations’1200th Auction 9th March 2019
Brian Grant Duff talks about Gassy Jack
John Mackie has featured our 1200th auction including Isaac Brock, Gassy Jack and more in an article for the Vancouver Sun here: https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/handwritten-list-of-gassy-jacks-debts-to-be-sold
Letter showing debts of one of Vancouver’s founders up for auction
Handwritten list of the debts
Article by Beth Leighton, The Canadian Press
VANCOUVER — A glimpse of British Columbia’s sometimes seamy history goes to the highest bidder Saturday in an online auction.
A legal document written after the May 1875 death of John Deighton, better known as Gassy Jack, lists the debts of one of the first men to bring liquor to the hardscrabble community of Granville, which eventually became the city of Vancouver.
Brian Grant Duff of All Nations Stamp and Coin, the Vancouver business running the online auction, said the list has the potential to “amplify” our understanding of the city’s earliest years.
“It gives us a good opportunity to talk about history, so there is a demand for these things,” Duff said in a telephone interview.
Deighton, originally from Hull in England, arrived on the shores of Burrard Inlet after a series of adventures and misadventures that saw him strike out during the Fraser River gold rush and work for a time as a river boat captain.
He then lost everything as the operator of a saloon in the then-booming town of New Westminster.
“Gassy Jack left his saloon in the hands of an American friend, who had an enormous Fourth of July party and gave away all the stock. So he was kind of wiped out there,” said Duff.
Deighton took one of his few remaining barrels of whisky and paddled by canoe to the mouth of the Fraser River and around what is now Point Grey into English Bay. He then used the liquor to entice men at an outpost sawmill to help him build another saloon, said Duff.
“Gassy Jack was pleased with his success here in proto-Vancouver, early Vancouver, and was known to let his family know that he had done well,” he said.
But the legal document, originally from a collection compiled by stamp and colonial artifacts collector Gerald Wellburn, shows Deighton was strapped for cash when he died, listing debts amounting to almost $5,000.
“Gassy Jack, if he were around, would probably complain that they were taking advantage of him,” said Duff.
Online bidding for the document, which started at $500, had passed, $1,000 on Wednesday and Duff expected it would eventually change hands for several thousand dollars.
Collectors who aren’t interested in Vancouver or colonial history and don’t know Deighton’s story “might not appreciate” the document, said Duff, but there’s little question it sheds more light on the history of one B.C.’s many colourful characters.
“He is said to have predicted that a great city would rise where he landed on the beach with his barrel of whisky and had that original saloon built,” Duff said.
See more pictures of Gassy Jack Lot 145 in Saturday 9th March 2019 auction
