In spite of the lingering United States recession and Bank of Canada interest rate warnings, stamp sales remain impressively strong with record prices seen at all major North American auctions over the past year. That is set to continue at Ron Leith's auction in Canada

The auction will again be held in conjunction with the RICHPEX 2011 Stamp Show scheduled for Friday and Saturday March 18-19 at the Sheraton Vancouver Airport Hotel in Richmond. The conversion to one sale per year has resulted in their largest auction to date.

Postal History auction highlights includes the entire Tripo Costello Postcard Stock along with his famous Santa Clause Collection, the Wally Gutzman Canada Fancy Cork Cancel Collection, the "Calgary Collection" of Postal Artifacts comprising over 200 Canada postal hammers, part one of the Lila Walcer lifetime collection of British Royalty Memorabilia noting signed photos of King George-V and Queen Mary, a scarce group of USA General McClellan Civil War Patriotic Covers

For aviation collectors there is a rare Amelia Earhart autographed cover (lot #782), and part one of the Donald Rogan Railroad Collection of RPO cancels, maps, books, and ephemera.

The section concludes with two massive dealer stocks comprising over 150,000 worldwide covers & postcards in 580 wholesale collection lots.

Stamp auction highlights: the Canada section includes the "Vernon Collection" of Superb Mint and Used Canada Classic Stamps, an extremely rare Newfoundland 5 Pence Favour "CANCELLED" Stamp that resulted in a British political scandal (lot #2476).

The finest collection of Canada Coil Start and End Strips that Ron Leith has ever offered, a fully operational USA Schermack Experimental Coil Vending Machine, the massive stock of recently retired packet dealer Hank Vander Veen, the Bill Anderson Precancel Collection listed as one of the top 10 collections in the Precancel Survey, and an outstanding collection of Canada Christmas Seals that includes many of the rare proofs are all available.

 The worldwide section has two huge worldwide stamp collections packed in 27 Minkus Supreme Global albums, and much more. The sale concludes with 396 wholesale stamp lots noting extensive intact collections of Canada, Newfoundland, France, Germany, Great Britain, and Yugoslavia.

Ron Leith's auction takes place in Washington, Canada and online on March 19, 2011.