“Collecting should be a pleasure and if you eventually make money, that’s a bonus.”Īny philatelist (the official name for stamp researchers and collectors) will tell you this: build your collection around a focus that interests you, whether it’s cars or birds or your family’s country of origin. “You learn a lot about the world in an effortless but pleasant way,” said retired dealer Anthony Grainger. Though numerous collectors have deep pockets and decades of knowledge, anyone can become a rare stamp aficionado.Īnd even if you aren't as lucky as the Rochdale collector, you can quickly become knowledgeable about a range of topics and geographic locations as you build a stamp collection. The sum was $9.5m, nearly a billion times its original penny value. In 2014, the one-cent magenta - an unassuming magenta octagon with handwritten black script released in British Guiana in 1856 - set the record for the most money ever paid for a postage stamp. Billions of stamps have been issued since the British Penny Black, the world’s first adhesive stamp, debuted in 1840, and many are laced with romance and lore - transporting collectors to exotic destinations, critical moments in history and, for some, elusive future fortunes. In 2014, he sold the stamp, known as SG 755b, at auction for £23,600 ($36,260).Īlthough the advent of email has hurt postal mail service in recent years, stamp collecting remains a passionate hobby as well as a valuable business and investment strategy in many countries. What he didn’t realise until later was that one of the stamps was missing the queen’s head.
He paid one shilling and nine pence (less than 10 US cents) for a pair that celebrated the invention of the television and featured a silhouette of Queen Elizabeth II. In 1967, a stamp enthusiast went to his local post office in the north England town of Rochdale to buy a pair of Great Britain stamps.
A simple trip to a British post office turned into a life-changing adventure for one lucky stamp collector.
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