A 19th century British colonial stamp – last owned by a crazed millionaire killer – went for a record $9.48 million at auction Tuesday night in New York.
It was won over the telephone by an unidentified bidder.
Before Tuesday night, the stamp’s owner was disgraced chemical heir John E. du Pont, who died in prison in 2010.
“That price [$9.48 million] will be hard to beat, and likely won’t be exceeded unless the British Guiana comes up for sale again in the future,” said
David Redden, Sotheby’s vice chairman.
Du Pont was convicted of murder – while mentally ill – in the slaying of Olympic gold medal-winning wrestler David Schultz in 1996. Du Pont was an avid wrestling support and sponsored several grapplers.
The stamp can be traced back to 1873 and 12-year-old school boy Vernon Vaughan in British Guiana, which is now the South American nation of Guyana.
The youngster traded it to collectors before it eventually landed in the hands of noted stamp enthusiast Philipp von Ferrary, an Austrian living in Paris, in 1879.
When he died in 1917, von Ferrary’s belongings were seized by the French government and claimed as German World War I reparations.
Von Ferrary’s prized stamp was won at auction in 1922 for a then-record $35,000 by Utica, NY, collector Arthur Hind. It’s believed Hind outbid King George V, who desperately wanted the stamp to round out the Royal Philatelic Society’s collection.
Hind died in 1935 and his wife showed off the stamp at the 1939-40 World’s Fair in New York where it caught the eye of Maryland collector Frederick Small. He bought it in a private sale from Hind’s wife for $45,000.
The famed stamp went under the hammer again in 1970, and drew a second world-record bid, $285,000 by Wilkes-Barre, Pa., collector Irwin Weinberg.
The third record-breaking auction came in 1980 when du Pont shelled out $935,000.