Stamp sells for record £1m

One of the world’s most famous stamps, the “Post Office Mauritius”, was sold today for more than £1m at auction.

The stamp went for £1,053,090 (€1,172,518), including buyer’s premium, at Spink in London, which the auction house said was a record for a stamp sold in the UK.

It was bought by a bidder taking part via telephone.

The stamp was part of The Chartwell Collection, to be sold over the next 18 months, through a series of nine auctions, and expected to fetch more than £20m (€22.26m) before the last lot goes under the hammer in December, 2012.

The collection, formed by businessman and philanthropist Cyril Humphrey Cripps, consists of some of the finest material for Great Britain and the British Empire ever seen.