A Florida widow is demanding a Manhattan auction house return her husband’s $2 million stamp collection after nearly a decade — and believes some of the precious postage might now be missing.
The prized collection was amassed by Stanley Marks, who first started trading stamps in 1937 when he was just 10.
The lawyer, who became a member of the New York Stock Exchange in the 1950s, turned a childhood hobby into a passion until his death in 2016 at age 89, when the collection was turned over to Robert A. Siegel Auction Galleries.
The collection was split into International and US stamps, with Siegel Auction Galleries selling the International portion in 2016 for $750,000, Marks’ widow, Shelly Entner said in court papers filed by the Stanley A. Marks Revocable Trust.
The auction house has held the US portion of the collection — valued at $2 million — on consignment ever since.
Entner and her son William visited in April to inspect the collection.
“At the on-site visit, Ms. Entner came to believe that some of the stamps that had been in the U.S. Collection at the time of consignment in 2016 were no longer there,” according to court papers.
The family demanded the collection be returned but claimed the auction house refused, then demanded the widow reimburse the company $56,000 for insuring the collection and release it from liability for any claims, Entner contended.
“Ms. Entner refuses to be taken advantage of by Siegel Auction, which has no right to demand a ransom for the return of the stamps,” said Entner’s lawyer, Wendy Lindstrom.
The widow is seeking at least $2 million in damages.
Siegel Auction denied the allegations calling the lawsuit “entirely baseless” and said the family “reviewed the collection at great length” during their April visit, and confirmed “that all of the stamps are there.”
“Siegel has repeatedly offered to return the collection to Ms. Entner,” attorney Daniel Weiner said.
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