One-Cent Stamp Sells for Record $9.5 Million

An incredibly rare 19th century postage stamp, a tiny one-cent magenta from British colonial Guyana, sold for a world record US$9.5 million at a New York auction on Tuesday.

It took just two minutes for an anonymous collector on the phone to seal the deal after quick-fire bidding opened at US$4.5 million in a packed room at Sotheby's in Manhattan.

The auction house had valued the tiny specimen of British colonial memorabilia at $10-20 million, an estimate which it said was vindicated by the sale price.

"The stamp has just sold for approximately US$9.5 million, which means it has set a new world record price for a stamp," announced David Redden, the auctioneer and Sotheby's director of special projects.

The previous auction record for a single stamp was $2.2 million, set by the Treskilling Yellow in 1996.

Made in 1856 in Guyana and measuring just one by 1.25 inches (2.54 by 3.18 centimeters), the stamp is octagonal, printed in black ink and bears the initials of its past owners on the back.

Redden told AFP that the one-cent magenta has a "wonderful aura" which made it "almost the Mona Lisa of stamps."

He said he "did not know" whether the new owner would add their own initials to the back.

Encased in glass, the stamp dates back more than 150 years and has passed through great collections, now breaking a world record price four times since 1922.

Last bought by convicted murderer and American multi-millionaire John du Pont in 1980, it was last seen in public in 1986, before going on display at Sotheby's in the build-up to Tuesday's sale.

The auction house says the stamp is the only surviving example of a one-cent magenta, so rare that it is missing even from the British royal family's philatelic collection.

"This is the most expensive object in the world by weight," Redden told AFP, marveling that it's " just a tiny piece of paper."

Colonial Guyana depended on supplies of stamps from England, but when a shipment was delayed in 1856, the postmaster commissioned a contingency supply.

The only surviving example of the one-cent variety was rediscovered in 1873 by Vernon Vaughan, a 12-year-old Scottish boy living with his family in British Guyana.

He found it among some family papers and added the stamp to his album. Vaughan then sold it to another collector for a few shillings, and the stamp made its way to Britain in 1878.

It was bought by French Count Philippe la Renotiere von Ferrary, perhaps the greatest stamp collector in history, and later donated to a museum in Berlin.

Read more at Discovery News