The Olive-colored Queen Victoria’s Head, printed in 1864, is the most expensive historical postage stamp of Hong Kong. The face value of the stamp was 96 Hong Kong cents (12 US cents) and it should have a brownish-grey tone. However, due to a printing error, 52 sheets of the stamp were printed in olive color. The watermark was wrongly styled, and the word “CC” was printed in the wrong place.
Among all 40 pieces of the Olive-colored Queen Victoria’s Head that can be found in the world nowadays, there is only one block of four such stamps existing. It has been collected by a number of famous collectors. In January 2012, it was auctioned off for 6.4 million HK dollars (US$824,648), setting a record in the history of Hong Kong stamp auctions.
9.S.G. #62, 1873 6p Orange vermilion, perf. 11 to 12, wmk. large star, unused right sheet-margin horizontal strip of four, lovely bright color, scissors trimmed at top close to the design, otherwise well centered within the strip and fresh; this value is analogous to the (1/2p) Grass green and (1p) Blue on unwatermarked paper with these same perforations (S.G. #36, 37), they were all prepared in small quantities but unissued, as noted in Stanley Gibbons there are only eight examples of this value known, contained in two strips of four, they were in fact a block of eight one time, this being the top strip with the other strip being also a right sheet-margin strip from the row directly below this, which had been previously thought to be the only strip known, as far as we know that strip is yet intact, so there are, in fact, only two items of this issue to be had; a great rarity of Barbados; 1990 RPS certificate; ex-Harris (Scott #41 var.; $32,000.00+). (Image)
SOLD for $50,000.00
Leave a Reply