What is the world’s most valuable stamp?

A photograph of the 1856 One-Cent Magenta used an infrared filter to suppress the stamp's red surface, making the black printing more visible.

Despite great expectations, the British Guiana One-Cent Black on Magenta stamp got licked in a much anticipated auction this morning.

The diminutive wisp of paper was expected to set a new world record for a single stamp sale at auction. Instead, bidding closed at $8,307,0oo—not pocket change by any means, but considerably short of its previous winning bid, $9.5 million, to say nothing of the $10-$15 million the stamp was expected to fetch today.

Even so, the stamp remains by weight one of the most highly valued items on the planet. "To philatelists, it's a really big deal, since it's the only copy of this stamp that has survived since 1856," says Daniel Piazza, chief curator of philately at the Smithsonian Institution's National Postal Museum. (Philately = a fancy word for loving and studying stamps.) The dark red, octagonal British Guiana One-Cent Magenta is often called "the Mona Lisa of the stamp world." But Piazza admits, "it's fairly unremarkable looking."

Murky in hue and scribbled upon by a colonial postal worker and former owners, the stamp disappointed some visitors to the museum when it was displayed there a few years ago. "I would say a common reaction was – 'this doesn't look right,' " Piazza remembers. "Well, that's because you've been looking at magazine [reproductions] for 40 years."

The world's most valuable stamp is "fairly unremarkable looking," admits the chief curator of philately at the Smithsonian Institution's National Postal Museum.

Rarely was the stamp seen in public for much of its existence until it was purchased by footwear magnate Stuart Weitzman in 2014, who allowed it to be exhibited for years.

"Blemished, battered and cut, the "British Guiana One-Cent Black on Magenta" is a stamp with a twisty tale to tell, one that begins in the hands of a young Scottish boy and passes through the hands of a killer," wrote my colleague Laurel Dalrymple in 2014, when Weitzman bought it for $9.5 million.

"The stamp was printed just 16 years after the introduction of postage stamps," she continued. "The postmaster in British Guiana (now Guyana), facing a stamp shortage, asked the colony's newspaper to print an emergency supply while awaiting a shipment of stamps from London.

"Displeased with the quality of the printing, the postmaster asked each postal clerk to initial the stamps upon sale to prevent fraud. The One-Cent bears the initials "EDW," those of clerk E.D. Wight, and a postmark of April 4, 1856, from the town of Demerara.

"The stamp's first owner was a Scottish boy named Vernon Vaughan who found it in 1873 among his family's letters. He sold it to a local collector for 6 shillings (The Washington Post says that was about $1.50 back then)."

Since then, the stamp has passed through the world's great collections, was seized by the French as reparations from Germany in 1920 and was owned for a while by John DuPont, a scion of one of America's richest families, even after he was convicted of murdering a wrestler in 1997.

Another devoted philatelist who saw the One-Cent Magenta in 2016 at the World Stamp Show in New York, likened the experience to seeing the actual Mona Lisa. (Meaning: it's less overwhelming than you'd think.) "Look, I don't want to get kicked out of the philately club," laughs Warachal Eileen Faison, who runs a philately organization geared towards African American collectors. "But as we were standing there in line, I could hear other people—and it wasn't me – saying, 'Is that it?'"

Still, the One-Cent Magenta is more than just a stamp, says Faison. "At least for me. Who touched the stamp? Who had it in their possession?" This most recent sale, she says, gives us a chance to reflect on how many of the ordinary things we touch today might also be histories in miniature.

1. British Guiana 1 cent Magenta, 1856

Price: $ 9.48 million

Called the Mona Lisa of philately, the British Guiana 1 cent stamp was printed out of a desperate need. The British Colony needed stamps and could not wait for fresh stock to arrive from England. The local publishers of Official Gazette printed a stock of one-cent stamps (for newspapers) and four-cent (for letters) octagonal stamps on low-quality magenta paper with a sailing ship and the motto of the colony Damus Petimus que Vicissim (We Give and We Seek in Return) printed in black. Not many knew of the stamp until a 12-year-old boy discovered it in 1873 and sold it for 6 shillings (roughly $10 now). Today, the ‘world’s rarest stamp’ is valued at roughly Rs 71 crore.

2. Treskilling Yellow, Sweden, 1855

Price: $2.6 million

Sweden’s Treskilling Yellow (also called ‘three schilling banco error of colour’) is prized because of a colour error - the stamp was meant to be green but due to a printing error, it came out yellow

Only one specimen of this stamp is known to be in existence. The story is that school student George Willhelm Baeckman pulled this stamp out of his grandmother’s garbage bin in 1885. A year later, he sold it for six kroners to a local dealer.

Currently, this stamp is in the collection of Count Gustaf Douglas, a Swedish aristocrat, billionaire businessman, and politician.

3. The Sicilian Error of Colour, 1859

Price: $2.6 Million

Often described as the most expensive Italian stamp, the Sicilian Error of Colour stamp features the side profile of a bearded man. Originally meant to be produced in yellow, a blue version of the stamp was released in 1859. Today, only two such stamps are known to exist. One of them briefly held the title of the world’s most expensive stamp when it was sold at a 2011 auction for $2.6 million dollars but that title has since been reclaimed by the British Guiana 1c Magenta.

4. Blue & Red Penny Mauritius, 1847

Price: $2 million

Housed in the Blue Penny Museum (Caudan Waterfront, Port Louis, Mauritius), the Blue Penny and Red Penny stamps are among the rarest in the world. Printed on September 21, 1847, in two denominations: an orange-red one penny and a deep blue two pence, the penny stamps depict the face of Queen Victoria and were the first British Empire stamps printed outside Great Britain. In 1993, a cover bearing both the stamps were auctioned for $3.8 million.

5. Baden 9 Kreuzer Error, 1851

Price: €1.31 Million

Think of a printer who misread the 9 for a 6 and created - unwittingly - one of the rarest stamps in the world. One of the first stamps issued by the former German state of Baden, the stamp was meant to be green. The green ink plate was to be used for the 6 Kreuzer stamp, but the printer misread the 9 for a 6, resulting in a colour error.

6. The Inverted Jenny, 1918

Price: $1.35 Million

The Inverted Jenny is a misprint of a 1918 stamp featuring one of the Jenny biplanes first used by the US Post Office to carry mail. On the face of the stamp, the plane was erroneously printed upside down. Hence, the name The Inverted Jenny. on the face of the stamp was accidentally printed upside down. To mark the 95th anniversary of this printing error, in 2014, the US Post Office released several million sheets of Inverted Jenny stamps.

7. 3c George Washington w/ B Grill, 1867

Price: $900,000

The 3c George Washington is rose pink in colour and bears the face of, well, George Washington, the first President of the United States. Neither colour nor the inscription makes this stamp remarkable. Its back is what is unusual - there’s a B grill pattern on the back which is very similar to the Z grill pattern featured on the Benjamin Franklin stamp. The grill pattern was not added for aesthetic reasons - the waffle-life pattern was included to catch/avoid fraud. There are only four 3-cent George Washington with B grill stamps in existence.

8. Tiflis Stamp, 1857

Price: $700,000

Originating from the city of Tiflis (now in Georgia), the Tiflis Stamp, also known as the Tiflis Unique, is one of the oldest surviving stamps of the Russian empire. If one did not know it were a stamp, one would look at its metal sheet and embossed lettering and assume it was a metal bookplate. It is this aesthetic novelty that makes Tiflis Unique so special. There are only five of these stamps in existence.

9. Hawaiian Missionaries, 1851

Price: $600,000

In 1851, the Kingdom of Hawaii issued its first stamps in 2, 5 and 13-cent valuations. Since it was predominantly used by Christian missionaries, the stamps came to be known as Hawaiian Missionaries. There was nothing so unusual about the stamps except that they were printed on thin paper that tore easily. Not many Hawaiian Missionaries survived the wrath of time but the well-preserved ones are highly sought after by collectors. The most invaluable are the 2-cent stamps used for newspaper circulation, of which only 15 exist.

10. The Whole Country is Red, 1968

Price: $475,000

Issued in 1968 during the Cultural Revolution, China’s The Whole Country is Red is famous for its error printing. Depicting a red map of China with a worker, a farmer and a soldier holding the Selected Works of Chairman Mao, the stamp was of an 8 fen (roughly 1 US cent) denomination. Though the stamp has ‘The Whole Country is Red’ emblazoned on it, the island of Taiwan was left in white. The stamp was available only for half a day because it was withdrawn as soon as the error was noticed. An unmounted 'The Whole Country is Red' stamp sold for $1.5 million at a 2018 auction.

(All photographs sourced from Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain)