Many dream all their life of only something although only very few collectors or dealers will be lucky to be given once in their life the opportunity of being offered a real high-class collection and then having the necessary cash to acquire that collection. After we were able to sell – already some years ago- two of the most important classic Switzerland collections, we are today extremely proud that we managed to buy this autumn again an absolutely top collection of indisputable world class quality of importance and significance of the Swiss Classic Philately.

It is the Richard Schaefer Collection,
Confoederatio Helvetica, Overseas covers with Sitting Helvetia Imperforated

After we bought this collection, we had the plan to enrich our upcomming annualy catalogues with these outstanding items. Most dealers or auctioneers have generally difficulty to buy (maybe only a few here and there) such rare top covers, while we have here in one single collection more than 100 of them.
Richard Schaefer (Sen.) has in his inestimable and for destination-collectors absolutely not to be missed masterwork of a collector

The Correspondence Switzerland to Overseas Countries (1459-1907)
not only put together the different postal rates to these far away countries. He also arranged these covers according to their rarity degree so that it is for us today an excellent work to attribute the exact rarity degree for this or that cover. For such purpose he invented a rarity scale from 1-13. The scale 10 was fixed for absolutely rare destinations. The degrees 11 and 12 hardly to be found and rank or degree 13 are so rare that they present the rarest destination. These are the ones which are mostly known only to exist as one or two in the world.
In this collection it is difficult (like in “normal” collections too) to find one or two items of the rarity 10. This is because the majority of these covers rank even higher. Even the degree 11 is many times present. Foremost because many covers of this highest degree of rarity were not known to Richard Schaefer when he prepared to publish his handbook. This fact makes the object (the collection) even more unique. One must not say without exaggeration that this work of father and son Schaefer was their most important work. Well knowing that both were working in other philatelic activities. Notably after the sale of the original collection covers were placed meanwhile in many other collections. So we have not only these but far more similar rarities from all the world were gathered to the present masterwork. The origin of the covers is mostly always recorded next to the cove You can see that many well known collectors contributed their bit.

Life is full of surprises. This was also our case with this collection. Without having any intention to sell, we showed this fantastic collection to two friends simply to give them a chance to see such splendour and perfection, which they would not see anywhere else. One of them, who cannot be described as a philatelist, did like it so much not only for all the rare destination covers but was truly impressed and fascinated with the precise descriptions of historical and political value and its matching illustrations as well as tax declarations that he begged us to leave the collection untouched. He told us that he would call us in two days. He kept his word and called us, saying he would like to buy the whole collection en bloc untouched!

We gave him our best possible private treaty price for the whole collection, realising very well that we would get more profit if we offered it broken up. This may be a fact but in this way the collection would stay intact (for a unpredictable time) but at least together. A splitting and a single sale of certain covers would have surely helped one or the other collector to brighten up his collection and this was surely our original intention when we bought this wonderful collection. On the other hand a breaking up of a collection of this importance (this may be my particular opinion) would have come close to a destruction of a Swiss cultural value. Since this would have been the case, it would have hurt me tremendously.

There are a few collections, which you should not break up due to their unique togetherness. Here we had the case according to me and because of this reason; we were ready to deprive ourselves of a possible bigger profit in favour of the satisfaction to have been helpful in keeping this collection together.
We are pleased to give to all collectors and dealers interested in this subject the opportunity to have a virtual look at this legendary collection. For this reason we illustrated all original album pages in the internet with the agreement of the proprietors or previous owner.

See under www.ghonegger.ch by clicking on the link "Community". Admire the pages and enjoy this work at ease, it is well worth while.  

With a few "impressions" of that collection we would like to make this text more interesting. My son had to pick a favourite cover to illustrate the front cover. He picked the cover to Gibraltar, which originated from the famous Wyler Collection.

Please do not deduct that once the en bloc sale is over, we would not have any more covers of rare destinations! That is completely wrong. You will find a few in this catalogue. We have many more from other sources, not illustrated now, which we can offer to seriously interested collectors and which will gradually appear in our offers.