Canadian Stamp Sells for Record Price at Auction
An 1851 Canadian black 12 pence stamp sold for $260,000 USD last week in New York City — the highest price ever paid for a Canadian stamp. Charles F. Shreve, president of Spink Shreves Galleries which held the auction last Thursday said: “It’s an amazing accomplishment to get that kind of price for that stamp…Whether it’s the U.S. or any other country in the world, it puts it in the top one per cent of the world’s rarest stamps.”
The 1851 pre-Confederation stamp bears a image of a young Queen Victoria. It’s one of the finest surviving examples from the era, which affected the price. Shreve added: “It’s just an iconic stamp of Canada. This was one of the first issues of Canada, 1851 — the first stamps in the world weren’t issued until 1840 in Great Britain…When the stamp was issued only 50,000 were issued and printed, but most of them were never used and only approximately 1,400 were ever distributed at post offices and of that 1,400, only a tiny fraction were ever saved.”
The stamp was purchased by an anonymous buyer through a New York stamp dealer. It was part of a collection belonging to Wall St. executive Bill Gross, one of the world’s preeminent stamp collectors. Gross, who sold the stamp to raise money for the Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum, also sold 132 other British North American stamps and 81 Civil War-era Confederate stamps, raising a total of $3.2 million for the museum.
Gross manages the world’s largest bond fund (PIMCO). In November 2005, he became only the third person in the world to form a complete collection of 19th century U.S. postage stamps. According to the Forbes 400 in 2007, he is the 380th richest person in America, with a net worth of $1.3 billion.
Learn about early Old Home Week celebrations in Canada.
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