RAREST POSTAGE STAMP

Evening Star, Issue 21006, 21 January 1932, Page 7

RAREST POSTAGE STAMP

As the postage stamp approaches its centenary, the values of the rarer specimens tend to approximate more closely to those' of other collectable objects (writes Mr Douglas Armstrong, in the. * Connoisseur ’). The prices realised by the classic rarities of philately when the great Ferrari collection came under the hammer some ten years ago, set up an entirely fresh standard of values, at the same time bringing into the philatelic field a new type or moneyed collector who is at once an investor and a connoisseur. To these factors may be attributed the steady upward movement in the stamp market that the last decade has witnessed. Until then, £1,450 was the record price paid for a single rare stamp in the open market. Nowadays there are a score at least valued by philatelic experts at from £I,OOO to £10,000; and, perhaps, twice that number that would realise between £SOO and £I,OOO. In nine years’ time the postage stamp will qualify for admission into the select company of the antique. The most highly-valued stamp in the world was found by a schoolboy in a garret at Georgetown, British Guiana, nearly sixty years ago. It was a poor enough specimen, badly rubbed so that its tiny figure _ of a sailing ship was scarcely recognisable against the dark magenta of the paper. Its discoverer was unimpressed by the fact that it bore the inscription “ One cent ” (instead of “ Four cents,” as is normal), and with some difficulty persuaded an elderly collector to give him a few shillings for his “ find.” In course of time, the purchaser, all unwitting that his album contained a uniquity of the first rank, sold it to an English stamp dealer, from whose hands the unfamiliar variety passed into that great collection formed by the late Coupt Von Ferrari. In the opinion of the best authorities, this solitary one cent stamp is the result of a printer’s error. Be that as it may, no second example has materialised to date. At the sale- of the Ferrari collection by order of the French Government in 1922, it was the object of keen competition, reaching finally the record figure of £7,300 (approximately) . To-day it reposes in the worldfamous collection of Mr Arthur Hind, of Utica, N.Y., by whom it is valued at £IO,OOO.