Rule #2 of Collecting - There Can Be Only One. A priceless item should be well-documented, legendary, and should have a few kings, murder, and intrigue involved.
Only one copy of the 1¢ stamp is known to exist. It is in used condition and has been cut in an octagonal shape. A signature, in accordance to Dalton's policy, can be seen on the left hand side. Although dirty and heavily postmarked on the upper left hand side, it is nonetheless regarded as priceless.
It was discovered in 1873, by 12-year-old Scottish schoolboy Vernon Vaughan in the Guyanese town of Demerara, amongst his uncle's letters. There was no record of it in his stamp catalogue, so he sold it to a collector some weeks later for a few shillings (probably worth the equivalent today of between US$0.50 and US$2.50) to a local dealer, N.R. McKinnon. After that, the price escalated. It was bought by a succession of collectors before being bought by Philippe la Rénotière von Ferrary in the 1880s for US$750. His massive stamp collection was willed to a Berlin museum following Ferrary's death in 1917, but was taken by France as war reparations following the end of World War I. Arthur Hind bought it during the series of fourteen auctions in 1922 for over US$36,000 (reportedly outbidding three kings, including King George V), and it was sold by his widow for US$40,000 to a Florida engineer. In 1970, a syndicate of Pennsylvanian investors, headed by Irwin Weinberg, purchased the stamp for $280,000 and spent much of the decade exhibiting the stamp in a worldwide tour. John E. du Pont bought it for $935,000 in 1980, and it is believed to be locked away in a bank vault, while its owner is serving a 30-year sentence for murder.[1]
An unsubstantiated rumour developed in the 1920s that a second copy of the stamp had been discovered, and that the then owner of the stamp, Arthur Hind, quietly purchased this second copy and destroyed it.
Source: British Guiana 1c magenta - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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