A one inch postage stamp has repeatedly created the record for the most valuable stamp in the world. It recreated a new record by fetching a whopping $9.5 million at a Sotheby’s auction in New York City earlier this week. The one inch stamp has a face value of one cent and was issued in 1856 by British Guaina. It is the fourth time that this stamp has gone under the block in an auction and every time it has created a new record. The One Cent Magenta as it is called has no competition as no other stamp is even close in value. It is highly unlikely that this record will be broken before this stamp comes back to an auction.
The valuable stamp was part of a private collection and was never shown to the public since 1986. Allen Kane, director of the Smithsonian National Postal Museum reaffirms that there are no other stamp as rare and as valuable as this. The serious stamp collectors were very eager to see this stamp for a long time. The other rare and valuable stamp is an 1855 Swedish stamp that sold in 1996 for $2.3 million. There are other 4 cent stamps that were issued at the same time and look very similar but the one cent stamp is the only one of its kind known to exist. It has achieved this kind of valuation because it is the rarest of the rare piece in existence.
The stamp is however not considered very lucky for the collector. In the world of stamp collectors this stamp comes with a bit of sordid back story. The One Cent Magenta was earlier owned by John E. du Pont, an heir to the du Pont chemical fortune. He bought the rare stamp in 1980 for only $935,000. He later got convicted on charges of fatally shooting an Olympic champion wrestler. The rare stamp had to be later sold by his estate. However it has not dampened the value of the stamp in any way and it continues its reign as the world’s most valuable postage stamp.
Via: consumerist
