PAPERS connected with Dundee inventor James Chalmers, an early proponent of the adhesive postage stamp, failed to sell at auction yesterday.

A spokeswoman for London auctioneers Spink said there were “no bids received” for the six items, expected to sell for between £125,000 and £150,000.

The documents formed part of Chalmers’ entry to the competition run by the Treasury in 1839 to devise a way to operate a uniform penny postage charge.

It is believed Chalmers, who ran a printing shop in Dundee’s Castle Street, first came up with the idea of an adhesive stamp cancelled by a hand stamp bearing a town name in 1834.

But when the Penny Black and Two-penny Blue were introduced in 1840, the credit went to Treasury official Rowland Hill.

In 1888, James Chalmers’ attempted to have his father credited with the invention, only for Pearson Hill, son of Rowland, to object.

The case failed and Rowland Hill remains credited with invention of the adhesive postage stamp.

The high estimated value of the documents is suggestive of the fact “Chalmers—and not Hill—was the real father of the postage stamp,” says Dundee historian and Scottish Postal History Society member Dr Norman Watson.

“While the British Post Office has consistently refused to acknowledge James Chalmers as the originator of the adhesive postage stamp, philatelists readily accept his contribution to the development of today’s postage system.”

It is not known at this stage whether the documents will be re-auctioned.