5 Most Valuable Postage Stamps


SWEDEN THREE SKILLING BANCO, YELLOW COLOR ERROR, 1855

In 1855, Sweden issued its first postage stamps, a set of five depicting the Swedish coat of arms, with denominations ranging from 3 to 24 skillings banco. The 3-skilling banco value was normally printed in a blue-green color, while the 8-skilling was printed in a yellowish orange shade. It is not known exactly what went wrong, but the most likely explanation is that a cliché of the 8-skilling printing plate (which consisted of 100 clichés assembled into a 10 x 10 array) was damaged or broken, and mistakenly replaced with a 3-skilling cliché. The number of stamps printed in the wrong color is unknown. On 22 May 2010, the stamp was auctioned once again by David Feldman in Geneva, Switzerland. It sold “for at least the $2.3 million price it set a record for in 1996″. The buyer reportedly was an “international consortium” and the seller was a financial firm auctioning the stamp to pay the former owner’s debt. The exact price and the identity of the buyer were not disclosed, however, and all bidders reportedly were sworn to secrecy.

POST OFFICE MAURITIUS, 1847


The Mauritius “Post Office” stamps were issued by the British Colony Mauritius in September 1847, in two denominations: an orange-red one penny (1d) and a deep blue two pence (2d). Their name comes from the wording on the stamps reading “Post Office”, which was soon changed in the next issue to “Post Paid.” [3] They are among the rarest postage stamps in the world. The greatest of all Mauritius collections, one of Hiroyuki Kanai, included unused copies of both the One Penny and Two Pence “Post Office” stamps, the “Bordeaux” cover with both the one penny and two pence stamps which has been called “la pièce de résistance de toute la philatélie” or “the greatest item in all philately”, and numerous reconstructed sheets of the subsequent issues. Kanai’s collection was sold by the auctioneer David Feldman in 1993, the Bordeaux cover going for the equivalent of about $4 million.

HAWAIIAN MISSIONARIES, 1851

The Hawaiian Missionaries are the first postage stamps of the Kingdom of Hawaii, issued in 1851. They came to be known as the “Missionaries” because they were primarily found on the correspondence of missionaries working in the Hawaiian Islands. Only a handful of these stamps have survived to the present day, and so they are amongst the great rarities of philately. The 2-cent is the rarest of the Hawaiian Missionaries, with 15 copies recorded. In 1920, 43 additional Missionaries appeared on the philatelic market. They came from a Charles Shattuck, whose mother had apparently corresponded with a missionary family in Hawaii, were acquired by George H. Grinnell and then sold to dealer John Klemann for $65,000. But in 1922, the stamps’ authenticity became the subject of a court case, and they were adjudged forgeries. In May 2006, Mystic Stamp Company announced that they had acquired 36 of the Grinnells from the descendants of George Grinnell, and were selling the group “as is” for 1.5 million US$.

BRITISH GUIANA ONE CENT BLACK ON MAGENTA, 1856

The British Guiana 1c magenta is regarded by many philatelists as the world’s most famous stamp. It was issued in limited numbers in British Guiana (now Guyana) in 1856, and only one specimen is now known to exist. In 1980 it was auctioned to John Dupont for $935,000. It is imperforate, printed in black on magenta paper, and it features a sailing ship along with the colony’s Latin motto “Damus Petimus Que Vicissim” (We give and expect in return) in the middle. Four thin lines frame the ship. The stamp’s country of issue and value in small black upper case lettering in turn surround the frame. The 1c magenta was part of a series of three definitive stamps issued in 1856 and was intended for use on local newspapers. The other two stamps, a 4c magenta and 4c blue, were intended for letter postage. In the 1920s a rumour developed that a second copy of the stamp had been discovered, and that the then owner of the stamp, Arthur Hind, had quietly purchased this second copy and destroyed it. The rumour has not been substantiated. In 1999, a second 1c stamp was claimed to have been discovered in Bremen, Germany. The stamp was owned by Peter Winter, who is widely known for producing many forgeries of classic philatelic items, printed as facsimiles on modern paper. Nevertheless, two European experts, Rolf Roeder and David Feldman, have said Winter’s stamp is genuine.

U.S. FRANKLIN Z-GRILL, 1867

This stamp is the rarest of all U.S. stamps, as only 2 copies are known to exist. These stamps depict a portrait of Benjamin Franklin and are embossed with a “Z-Grill” – being a pattern of tiny squares embossed into the paper and visible on the back of the stamps. The purpose of the “Z-Grill” was to permit the canceling ink to be absorbed into the stamp paper thus preventing those who wanted to cheat the post from washing out cancellation marks. The use of “Z-Grills” was not found to be practical and the practice was soon discontinued. An 1868 1 cent “Z-Grill” stamp sold for $930,000 in 1988.

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