Glen Stephens
Looks better in Mono than Colour! the-top defacement was excessive to most who commented. Thank Goodness for philately that Donald Trump did not choose to buy it - he’d likely have used a black Sharpie marker pen - on the FRONT! If these guys bought one of the 17 existing copies of the Magna Carta would they also go scrawling stiletto heel graffiti all over that too? Anyway, what is done is done, and hopefully now that Weitzman has already tired of it, someone with a bit more common sense will own it, and not repeat the same wanton ego madness. The different markings you see on reverse are outlined in this list - most of them are very discreet 1. Two strikes of Count Philipp von Ferrary’s famous “trefoil” owner’s mark. One impression
is very faint, at lower left. It sold for then $US32,500 in 1922. 2. A large faint “H” of new owner, American Billionaire Arthur Hind at top - said to have burnt a second copy sold to him. “It is now STILL unique”. 3. A small “FK” of Finbar Kenny, the manager at Macy’s Stamp Department, who brokered the sale by Hind’s widow to Fred Small for $US45,000 in 1940. 4. Large, ornate 17 pointed star of Anna Hind, placed OVER her 30 year older husband’s “AH” cloverleaf, who had largely cut her out of his will. 5. A small discreet shooting star lower right, added by Australian born WWI Gallipoli hero, Frederick Small, who owned it under total secrecy from 1940-1970. 6. A pencilled “IW” by Irwin Weinberg, head of a group of investors who bought it 1970 for $US280,000 at Siegels, and later sold it to du Pont via Siegel Auctions. 7. A large soft pencilled “J E d P”, initials of the late John E. Du Pont who bought it for $US935,000 in 1980, and died in prison. His heirs sold it in 2014. 8. Vandal scrawl added 2019 of “SW” and a vertical stiletto squiggle in heavy pencil or metallic ink pen, by NY shoe designer, Stuart Weitzman who paid $US9.48m. This poor old stamp, damaged and repaired, Stamp News - 59
