I Could Retire…Well

The postage stamp is quickly going the way of the payphone.  Personal communications, bills, advertisements, all the things we’ve collected at the Post Office are, more and more, showing up electronically.  Texting, emailing and social media…and their side-effect (the urge for immediate gratification) have created a society without the patience to wait by the mailbox.

Progress is progress but there’s a tinge of sadness in the trend.  In my closet is a shoe-box full of letters.  Each one hand written more than twenty-five years ago by a beautiful young woman; a woman I’ll have been married to for twenty-five years next week.  I joyfully read every word when they arrived in my mailbox two and a half decades ago and, to this day, treasure them (though, upon my death I’ve instructed my kids to burn them…immediately…unread…for their sake, not mine). 

As letters are becoming more antiquated, so are the fee voucher to an intricate web of physical transportation and storage designed around them (stamps).  Not an uncommon hobby, for centuries philatelists, have collected circulated and uncirculated stamps.  And, as is often the case when people collect, some stamps have developed quite a value.

Some of the rock stars of the stamp world are the Sweden 3 skilling 1857 Banco Yellow (worth $2,000,000), the Post Office Mauritus 1d and 2d 1847 (worth $500,000 to $1,100,000 ) and the Hawaiian Islands 1851 2-cent Missionary (worth $660,000 to $200,000).  But all are merely an opening act, Lou Rawls to the Beatles, Prince to Led Zeppelin, the Wiggles to Barney, to the 1856 British Guiana 1c Magenta.

A grand total of one is know to exist.  Intended for use on a local newspaper in Guiana, the Royal Gazette, it was commissioned by the local Postmaster to replace a lost shipment.  There’s an interesting history to be read if you happen to be kinda bored and with internet access.  Today the 1856 British Guiana 1c magenta went up for auction. 

This single specimen was discovered seventeen years after its creation by a kid going through his uncle’s letters (presumably not from a romantic interest).  The kid couldn’t identify it so he sold it to a local collector for six shillings, or 72 times its original value of 1 cent.  That figure, 72 cents, is based on what I could figure out about English money (there’s a good chance the English empire was built on shortchanging the rest of the world).  The kid had to feel pretty good about his profits…unless he kept up with the stamp.

In 1922 the stamp sold for over $36,000, in 1940 for $40,000 and in 1980 for $935,000.  And what did experts think this one cent stamp will bring some 158 years after its original sale…for one cent?  Estimates were pointing toward $20 million; a nice increase for a makeshift replacement of a tardy postage stamp.  Disappointingly, it only went for $9.5 million…did I mention it’s a 1 cent stamp?

My letters are valuable to me, but if you’ve got $9.5 million to spend, they’re yours.  I could live a wealthy life, buy some stupid stuff and spend a vacation in British Guiana reading newspapers with that kind of money.  For the price of a stamp I could retire…well.