The New York herald., 1922-07-23
. OR the possession of faded
n bit of colored paper barely

bit of colored paper barely
an inch square a dozen men
gathered in the back rooms of a
Paris auction market from points as
far away as America doubled and
trebled their bids until the price had
passed one hundred, two hundred
and three hundred thousand francs
and finally halted at $4,000 francs.
For that sum, the equivalent of a
thousand acres of rich farm land in
any Of the fertile valleys of southern
France, the cost of an exclusive
chateau or the amount Of money re-
quired to entirely rebuild any of the
hundreds of small towns leveled by
the waste of war, the lucky bidder
received a one cent British Guiana
postage stamp of the issue Of 1856.
the rarest thing known TO philatelists.
French Government Profits.
The occasion was the disposal q
one lot of the great stamp collection
Of M. Ferrari de La Renotisre at the
Hotel Drouot, in Paris. early this
summer, when only the most val
liable of the many postage stamp
jewels in the collection brought a
total of over seven million francs
under the hammer of the auctioneer.
The receipts of the sale go into the
Golfers of the French Government,
M. Ferrari de La Renotiere having
been adjudged an alien and his
property seized during the war. only
to be disposed of now by the French
alien property custodian.
The history of the collection is an
interesting one. chiefly through the
personality of the collector, who was
widely known in America. NJ. Fer
rari de La Renotiere was the son of
the Duchess de Galliera, upon the
death Of whom he inherited a large
fortune. But La Renotiere was
man Of precise views and did not
like the origin of the money left him.
He therefore spent much of it in
charities and lived, himself, in the
most inexpensive manner, practically
as a hermit.
Becoming interested in stamp COL
lecting, he devoted much of his time
And money to this activity. Having
long been an amateur admirer Of
great collections, he set about with
his inherited fortune to build up for
himself the greatest collection in the
world There are many who contend
that the collection which the present
King of England maintains is the
greatest. but it is doubtful if even
that Sovereign has stamps of the
value that have been found in the
La Renotiere collection. The collec-
ton of the British Monarch is one
Of the most complete to-day, espe-
cial1y as regards the thousands of
surcharge issues which came with
the war. but it lacks the valuable
early issues which were a feature of
the collection just broken up. The
collection of King George is limited,
moreover to the stamps of Great
Britain and British colonies
Rivaled Only by King George.
When the war broke out La
Renotiere was found to be a for
eigner and adjudged to be an Aus
trian, although he pleaded that the
place of birth of his ancestors had
nothing to do with his fidelity for
France His pleadings we're in vain,
however. and early in the war his
precious stamps-the work of years
of collection--were boxed up and
stored away in the caves Of the
Biblioteeque Nati6nale. La Reno
there did not give up his fight to re-
gain the results of his life work and
declared repeatedly that he was in
fact, without nationality-another
man without country The courts
nevertheless decided that he was an