‘Mona Lisa’ of stamps sets €7m auction record

A one-cent postage stamp from a 19th-century British colony in South America has become the world’s most valuable stamp — again.

The 1856 British Guiana One-Cent Magenta sold at auction at Sotheby’s in New York for $9.5m (€7m). It is the fourth time it has broken the auction record for a single stamp in its history.

The stamp was expected to sell for $10-$20m. Sotheby’s said the buyer wished to remain anonymous. The price included the buyer’s premium.

David Redden, Sotheby’s vice chairman said: “That price will be hard to beat, and likely won’t be exceeded unless the British Guiana comes up for sale again.”

Measuring one by one and a quarter inches, the One-Cent Magenta has not been on public view since 1986 and is the only major stamp absent from the British royal family’s private collection. “You’re not going to find anything rarer than this,” said Allen Kane, director of the Smithsonian National Postal Museum.

“It’s a stamp the world of collectors has been dying to see for a long time.”

An 1855 Swedish stamp previously held the auction record for a single stamp. It sold for $2.3m in 1996.

David Beech, a retired curator of stamps at the British Library, has compared it to buying the “Mona Lisa” of the world’s most prized stamps.