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This sale catalogue presents the major portion of the Hall collection of Confederate States, with the exception of items sold in April 2000 (Sale 823) that were kept separate from the main collection. Viewed in its entirety, the Hall collection of Confederate States is one of the most accomplished collections of this subject ever to reach the auction market.
A significant part of my personal fascination with the material is based on its provenance. The Halls were given the opportunity to acquire major sections of the Edward S. Knapp Confederate collection when it was dispersed by private treaty in 1928. The invoice shown above lists some of the remarkable items and groups purchased from Knapp through Scott Stamp &Coin. The Halls also bought items from the legendary Walcott, Ackerman, Emerson and Brown collections, both at auction and through private treaty.
The emergence of so many long-lost artifacts of Confederate philately is certain to invigorate collectors and provide critical material for study. Coincidentally, an award-winning series of articles by Leonard H. Hartmann on the Lithographed issues has been running in The Chronicle (Nos. 180, 182, 185 and 190). Mr. Hartmann, a careful and diligent student of the Lithographs, pondered the whereabouts of several significant items recorded by philatelists, but not seen in 60 or more years. In Chronicle 180, page 270, he asks about two items, "does anyone know where they are today?" Well, yes, they are lots 165 and 177 in this catalogue.
Collectors such as August Dietz, Edward S. Knapp and John H. Hall were challenged by the technical aspects of Confederate stamp production. In particular, the Lithographs presented them with many unanswered questions about how the Transfer Stones and Printing Stones were created. Some of those questions and new ones, too, continue to vex philatelists. Knapp’s studies of the Misplaced Transfers and Replaced Transfers, unpublished and hidden from philately for 73 years, are unveiled in this catalogue and should fuel a field of study ignited by Mr. Hartmann’s series, which explored these extraordinary and rare Lithograph varieties.
The most valuable items in the Hall collection are so conspicuous, it feels gratuitous to mention them, but I will point out one. The complete pane of Confederate Number One, offered as lot 142, is arguably the most outstanding surviving item of Confederate Philately. Along with the largest recorded blocks of United States Numbers One and Two, the Confederate pane is, in my opinion, one of the greatest items in American Philately.
This offering of the Hall collection is like opening a philatelic time capsule. I doubt anything like it will ever happen again.
—SCOTT R. TREPEL