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Yesterday, the British Guiana one-cent magenta postage stamp of 1856 sold at auction for $9.5 million:
http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/18/luxury/stamp-auction/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Guiana_1c_magenta
It thereby reclaimed its position as the world’s most valuable stamp from the Sweden three-skilling yellow of 1855:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treskilling_Yellow
Its most recent previous owner was John E. du Pont, who bought it in 1980 for $935,000. He was convicted of murder in 1997, and died in prison in 2010. His estate was the seller in yesterday’s sale.
I’ve seen it on probably two occasions: the big international stamp shows in Philadelphia in 1976, and in Chicago in 1986. During the shows in San Francisco in 1997 and Washington DC in 2006, du Pont was in prison; maybe the new owner will show it in New York in 2016. In Philadelphia, it was displayed by itself in a “court of honor” along with several other famous philatelic items; but in Chicago it was among the “normal” exhibits as part of du Pont’s comprehensive collection of British Guiana, with a guard standing nearby:
Thanks to Photoshop, I can pull out some details from the apparently featureless blob in the scanned slide above:
http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/18/luxury/stamp-auction/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Guiana_1c_magenta
It thereby reclaimed its position as the world’s most valuable stamp from the Sweden three-skilling yellow of 1855:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treskilling_Yellow
Its most recent previous owner was John E. du Pont, who bought it in 1980 for $935,000. He was convicted of murder in 1997, and died in prison in 2010. His estate was the seller in yesterday’s sale.
I’ve seen it on probably two occasions: the big international stamp shows in Philadelphia in 1976, and in Chicago in 1986. During the shows in San Francisco in 1997 and Washington DC in 2006, du Pont was in prison; maybe the new owner will show it in New York in 2016. In Philadelphia, it was displayed by itself in a “court of honor” along with several other famous philatelic items; but in Chicago it was among the “normal” exhibits as part of du Pont’s comprehensive collection of British Guiana, with a guard standing nearby:
Thanks to Photoshop, I can pull out some details from the apparently featureless blob in the scanned slide above: