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Showing 1 - 25 of
35 matches in All Departments
When it was issued in 1856, it cost a penny. In 2014, this tiny
square of faded red paper sold at Sotheby's for nearly $9.5
million, the largest amount ever paid fora postage stamp at
auction. Through the stories of the eccentric characters who have
bought, owned, and sold the one-cent magenta in the years in
between, James Barron delivers a fascinating tale of global history
and immense wealth, and of the human desire to collect. One-cent
magentas were provisional stamps, printed quickly in what was then
British Guiana when a shipment of official stamps from London did
not arrive. They were intended for periodicals, and most were
thrown out with the newspapers. But one stamp survived. The
singular one-cent magenta has had only nine owners since a
twelve-year-old boy discovered it in 1873 as he sorted through
papers in his uncle's house. He soon sold it for what would be $17
today. (That's been called the worst stamp deal in history.) Among
later owners was a fabulously wealthy Frenchman who hid the stamp
from almost everyone (even King George V of England couldn't get a
peek); a businessman who traveled with the stamp in a briefcase he
handcuffed to his wrist; and John E. du Pont, an heir to the
chemical fortune, who died while serving a thirty-year sentence for
the murder of Olympic wrestler Dave Schultz. Recommended for fans
of Nicholas A. Basbanes, Susan Orlean, and Simon Winchester, The
One-Cent Magenta explores the intersection of obsessive pursuits
and great affluence and asks why we want most what is most rare.
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