Career
They quickly gained a reputation of selling the rarest of postage stamps but also served and encouraged youngsters who visited their stamp store. Raymond loved to travel and would travel to review and purchase stamp collections throughout the country, while Roger preferred to remain tending the shop. Some of the most important collections known in philately, including those built by the brothers themselves, were sold by the Weill brothers.
Some of the famous rare postage stamps sold through the Weill brothers include the famous cover bearing two 1-penny Post Office Mauritius stamps from the collection of Louise Boyd Dale.
The cover sold through a Harmer auction in 1968 for the sum of $380,000.00, the highest sum ever recorded for the sale of a philatelic item up to that time. The Weill brothers were regarded in the philatelic world as being honest, reputable, and generous.
They supported their local stamp club, the Crescent City Stamp Club, as well as national philatelic organizations. One of the rarest American stamps is the “inverted Curtis Jenny” 24 cent airmail stamp of 1918, listed in the Scott catalog as C3a.
The brothers felt that such a rare American stamp should be reserved for all Americans, and they donated a copy of the stamp to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, District of Columbia Raymond donated his library of philatelic literature and papers to the Postal History Foundation in Tucson, Arizona.
In 1989 the firm sold its stock for ten million dollars. However, the brothers decided afterwards to continue their work and did so until they both died.
