A slow let down.

The opposite sometimes occurs. A very old friend of mine who
specialises in The Territory of New Guinea and Papua, (he is writing a
book on New Guinea and is probably the world's leading philatelic
authority on the Huts and Birds issues) wrote to me enclosing some NWPI
stamps he had found in an old box. He had acquired them about 40 years
ago when he toyed with the idea of collecting them. He thought they
were worth a small amount of money but asked me if I wanted any and if
not to dispose of them on his behalf. There were some 5 or 6 sparsely
filled stock pages of stamps.
On the 1st page there were mint pairs of the 1/2d green, the 1d and 4d
KGV, and 2d,3d,6d and 9d Kangaroos. There were 2 pairs of each.
Normally one would expect SG102 - =A31.25, SG103 - =A32.50, etc. No pair
would be catalogued at more than about =A320. However all the KGV and
Kangaroo pairs were 3rd setting from the bottom left and right of the
pane having the substitued cliches giving horizontal settings AC and BC
rather than all C! Not only that but the Kangaroo issues were all 1st
watermark making them the most expensive of the issue. Not only that -
the 6d value had inverted watermark making the pair catalogue at =A3200
without the setting variety! It is one of 2 such pairs known with
inverted watermark. The catalogue is behind as it is much much rarer.
The following 4 pages did not disappoint as each stamp turned out to be
the most expensive in it's range! I disposed of them for my friend for
over =A32,500 and he was absolutely delighted. He would have been happy
with 1/10th of the final price.