1 - Mauritius (British island east of Madagascar), 1848, earliest impression; Pacificus.
2 - Sweden, 1855, rarest stamp of Europe, error, should be bluegreen instead of yellow; Dr. Hans Lundberg, Toronto, Canada.
3 - Honduras, 1925, world's rarest airmail; Oscar Lichtenstein, Rumson, N.J.
4 - Great Britain, 1864, plate 77; British Museum.
5 - Mauritius, 1847; Queen Elizabeth.
6 - St. Louis, Mo., 1845, greenish paper, Postmaster Provisional (a stamp issued by a local U.S. postmaster before government -issued stamps); Raymond H. Weill Co., New Orleans.
7 - Switzerland, 1850, with complete frame around central cross not on later printings; Dr . Hans Leeman, Geneva.
8 - Moldavia, 1858; Philip Ward Jr., Philadelphia.
9 - Western Australia, 1854, Inverted Swan; Ward.
10 - Naples, 1860; Theodore Champion, Paris.
Mauritius block of four
Scott values single examples of the 1848 1 penny orange, earliest impression, as $42,500 / $15,750 for mint / used. This block of four was sold by Siegel Auction Galleries in 1996 for $250,000. The online catalogue description is as follows,
MAURITIUS, 1848, 1p Orange Vermilion on Yellowish Paper, Earliest Impression (3; SG 3). Positions 7-8/10-11, unused block of four from lower left corner of the sheet, beautiful prooflike impression from the earliest state of the plate, richly inked and vivid fresh color, large to huge margins including part of sheet margins at left and bottom, horizontal crease between the stamps and vertical crease thru two righthand stamps, not affecting appearance, few faint toned spots on back
THE FAMOUS AND UNIQUE UNUSED BLOCK OF THE ONE-PENNY "POST PAID" EARLIEST IMPRESSION. THE MOST IMPORTANT UNUSED MULTIPLE OF MAURITIUS AND ONE OF THE OUTSTANDING IMPERFORATE BLOCKS OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE.
This remarkable survivor from the early period of the Mauritius post office can be traced as far back as Henry J. Duveen's ownership. It is not known from whom Duveen acquired the block, although he did purchase a significant portion of Sir William B. Avery's Mauritius collection. When the Duveen collection was dispersed through private sales by Charles J. Phillips in 1922-1926, the block figured prominently among the items purchased by Arthur Hind. After Hind's death, his Mauritius was offered as the fourth part of the British Empire series conducted by H. R. Harmer of London (June 12, 1934), and the "Post Paid" block sold for the U.S. dollar equivalent of $23,688, a staggering price that eclipsed the combined figure paid for the 1p and 2p "Post Office" stamps and came close to matching the amount realized by the 1p and 2p "Post Office" combination cover. The buyer was Alfred H. Caspary, presumably in competition with Maurice Burrus and Alfred F. Lichtenstein. Although Caspary's Mauritius collection paled in comparison to the holdings of his contemporaries, Burrus and Lichtenstein - he lacked even a single example of the "Post Office" stamps - the two titans of British Empire philately must have coveted their friend's "Post Paid" block. In 1958, after Caspary's death, his Mauritius was sold by H. R. Harmer, and the "Post Paid" block was featured in color in the sale catalogue, the only item in all of the Caspary sales to receive such chromatic distinction. It realized $18,500 and soon became part of the Josiah K. Lilly collection. When our firm sold the Lilly collection after his death, the "Post Paid" block realized $64,000 (March 16, 1967).
Thanks to Siegel Auction Galleries for the image and quote.
[accessed 19th October 2016]
Sweden 1885 colour error
This stamp, valued by LIFE at $40,000 in 1954, sold for $2,300,000 in 2010 and changed hands again in 2013 for an undisclosed amount. Scott [2007] sets the value at $3M.The story is told by Wikipedia,
In 1855, Sweden issued its first postage stamps, in a set of five values depicting the Swedish coat of arms, with denominations ranging from three to 24 Swedish skillings. The three-skilling stamp was normally printed in a blue-green color, with the eight-skilling stamp being printed in yellowish orange. It is not known exactly what went wrong, but the most likely explanation is that a stereotype of the eight-skilling printing plate (which consisted of 100 stereotypes assembled into a 10 × 10 array) was damaged or broken, and it was mistakenly replaced with a three-skilling. The number of stamps printed in the wrong color is unknown, but so far only one example has been found.[accessed 19th October 2016]
Somehow, this error went entirely unnoticed at the time, and by 1873 the Swedish currency was changed. The skilling stamps were replaced by new stamps denominated in "öre". In 1886, a young collector named Georg Wilhelm Backman was going through covers in his grandmother's attic at the farm Väster Munga Gård north of Västerås, and came across one with a three-skilling stamp, for which the Stockholm stamp dealer Heinrich Lichtenstein was offering seven kronor apiece. After it had changed hands several times, Sigmund Friedl sold it to Philipp von Ferrary in 1894, who had at that time the largest known stamp collection in the world, and paid the breathtaking sum of 4,000 Austro-Hungarian gulden. As time passed, and no other "yellows" surfaced despite vigorous searching, it became clear that the stamp was not only rare, but quite possibly the only surviving example.
When Ferrary's collection was auctioned in the 1920s, Swedish Baron Eric Leijonhufvud bought the yellow stamp, and then Claes A. Tamm bought it in 1926 for £1,500 (pound sterling) in order to complete his collection of Swedish stamps. In 1928, the stamp was sold to the lawyer Johan Ramberg for £2,000, and he kept it for nine years. In 1937, King Carol II of Romania purchased it from London auction house H. R. Harmer for £5,000, and in 1950 it went to Rene Berlingen for an unknown amount of money. In the 1970s, the Swedish Postal Museum caused controversy by declaring the stamp to be a forgery, but after examinations by two different commissions, it was agreed that this was a genuine stamp.
In 1984, the yellow stamp made headlines when it was sold by David Feldman for 977,500 Swiss francs. It was resold in 1990 for over $1,000,000. Then, in 1996 it sold again for 2,880,000 Swiss francs. Each successive sale was a world record price for a postage stamp.
On 22 May 2010, the yellow stamp was auctioned once again by David Feldman in Geneva, Switzerland. It sold "for at least the $2.3 million price [that] 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. The buyer has subsequently been identified as Armand Rousso, "a colorful philatelic player ... known ... for a number of high-profile activities."
In May 2013 the stamp was acquired in a private sale by Count Gustaf Douglas, a Swedish nobleman and politician.
Compared to the first two, unique items, the remainder of the stamps in this section are (relatively) merely rare and expensive.
Sc-C12 SG236c See Linns for this stamp's hisory.
Sc33 SG43 Penny Red Plate 77, Scott [2007] $150,000 / $130,000. Story here.
Sc2 SG2 the 2d Post Office, see Page 85.
Sc11X3 SG77 The 20c stamp is valued at $85,000, the 5c and 10c at $6,500. Scott [2007].
Sc6 SG9 The expensive versions of this stamp have a "full black frame around the cross".
Sc4 SG3
Sc3 SG3h Inverted swan
Sc8 SG8 The expensive stamp is deep blue, the plate altered from Sc1 to change the denomination from ½ G(rana) to ½ T(ornesi). A later plate change was made to replace the coat of arms with the cross of Savoy.
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