World Postal Day is celebrated every year on 9 October. This year’s theme of World Post Day is Innovate to Recover. People relied on the postal services during the lockdown that was imposed due to the covid-19 breakout. Hence, this year’s theme is to encourage more people to use the postal and gather ideas for innovation.
1. British Guiana 1 cent Magenta, 1856
Price: $ 9.48 million
Called the Mona Lisa of philately, the British Guiana 1 cent stamp was printed out of desperate need. The local publishers of Official Gazette printed stock of octagonal stamps with a sailing ship and the motto of the colony Damus Petimus que Vicissim (We Give and We Seek in Return) printed in black.
2. Treskilling Yellow, Sweden, 1855
Price: $2.6 million
Sweden’s Treskilling Yellow is prized because of a colour error – the stamp was meant to be green but due to a printing error, it came out yellow. Only one specimen of this stamp is known to be in existence.
3. The Sicilian Error of Colour, 1859
Price: $2.6 Million
Often described as the most expensive Italian stamp, the Sicilian Error of Colour stamp was originally meant to be produced in yellow, a blue version of the stamp was released in 1859. Today, only two such stamps are known to exist.
4. Blue & Red Penny Mauritius, 1847
Price: $2 million
Housed in the Blue Penny Museum (Caudan Waterfront, Port Louis, Mauritius), the Blue Penny and Red Penny stamps are among the rarest in the world. Printed on September 21, 1847, in two denominations: an orange-red one penny and a deep blue two pence, the penny stamps depict the face of Queen Victoria and were the first British Empire stamps printed outside Great Britain. In 1993, a cover bearing both the stamps were auctioned for $3.8 million.
5. Baden 9 Kreuzer Error, 1851
Price: €1.31 Million
Think of a printer who misread the 9 for a 6 and created – unwittingly – one of the rarest stamps in the world. One of the first stamps issued by the former German state of Baden, the stamp was meant to be green. The printer misread the 9 for a 6, resulting in a colour error.
6. The Inverted Jenny, 1918
Price: $1.35 Million
The Inverted Jenny is a misprint of a 1918 stamp featuring one of the Jenny biplanes first used by the US Post Office to carry mail. On the face of the stamp, the plane was erroneously printed upside down.
7. 3c George Washington w/ B Grill, 1867
Price: $900,000
The 3c George Washington is rose pink in colour and bears the face of, well, George Washington. Its back is what is unusual – there’s a B grill pattern on the back which is very similar to the Z grill pattern featured on the Benjamin Franklin stamp.
8. Tiflis Stamp, 1857
Price: $700,000
Originating from the city of Tiflis (now in Georgia), the Tiflis Stamp, also known as the Tiflis Unique, is one of the oldest surviving stamps of the Russian empire. If one did not know it were a stamp, one would assume it was a metal bookplate. There are only five of these stamps in existence.
9. Hawaiian Missionaries, 1851
Price: $600,000
In 1851, the Kingdom of Hawaii issued its first stamps in 2, 5 and 13-cent valuations. Since it was predominantly used by Christian missionaries, the stamps came to be known as Hawaiian Missionaries. The most invaluable are the 2-cent stamps used for newspaper circulation, of which only 15 exist.
10. The Whole Country is Red, 1968
Price: $475,000
Issued in 1968 during the Cultural Revolution, China’s The Whole Country is Red is famous for its error printing. Depicting a red map of China with a worker, a farmer and a soldier holding the Selected Works of Chairman Mao, the stamp was of an 8 fen (roughly 1 US cent) denomination. Though the stamp has ‘The Whole Country is Red’ emblazoned on it, the island of Taiwan was left in white. The stamp was available only for half a day because it was withdrawn as soon as the error was noticed.
(All photographs sourced from Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain)
