1869 Pictorial Issue - Complete Set Of Proofs

Here is the set of proofs I purchased last weekend at the Nashua stamp show. They were once owned by the famous philatelic writer Herman Hearst, Jr..

Nice stamps, how did you get the pictures so big? Can I ask approximately what did you pay? You don't have to tell if you don't want. I'm just curious.
LeAnn

WOW Those are something ! How was the pedigree substantiated ?

are they graded ?

Havoc

quote:

---

Nice stamps, how did you get the pictures so big?

---

I scanned them on my HP scanner at 1200dpi with 65% size reduction. This gave me TIFF files about 2.1 megabytes in size. I cropped them using the HP software which came with the scanner and saved them as JPEG files, but not at the highest quality setting - one notch down from that, the second highest quality, which gives you smaller file sizes. After I saved the JPEG files to my computer hard drive, they were about 90K each, which is small enough to upload them to Stamp Community.

quote:

---

Can I ask approximately what did you pay? You don't have to tell if you don't want. I'm just curious.

---

They were $50 each.

quote:

---

How was the pedigree substantiated ?

---

The original page from Pat Herst's sales book came with the set...



...and on the back of the sales page are three Herst cinderallas, like this one:

quote:

---

are they graded ?

---

They are all VF, some are close to XF (like the 12c). Except the 1c Franklin. This one is cut way too close for my taste. The dealer agreed with me and is looking for a better one for me to upgrade my set. The top of the 24c is not great, but I can live with it. The colors are bright on all the stamps and the impressions are very clean and sharp.

(They are not professionally certified and graded.)

Also there is Herst's logo on the back of the manila stock card that came with the set:



These collateral items will all go in my album on a page after the proofs. I think I will keep the 1c Franklin with the rest of the set since it has the same provenance.

Those are awesome, and I'd say you got a great deal. Those 1c stamps seem to be hard to find well-centered in any form.

thanks habib!