I'm not quite sure if I have been languishing lately, but I've sure been lazy. I finally started working on a post about the psychology of collecting and ownership, and that will probably come soon, but I belatedly realized that a historic philatelic sale was happening this week. I can't figure out how to connect this to the IGY, but it is certainly an extreme example of what people will pay for stamps, and the "obsession" of owning (I hesitate to call this collecting) them (or other stuff).
I must not be sufficiently attuned to the news of philately, because I only realized this sale was happening when I received a link passed along from Paul Petersen, the indefatigable newsletter editor of the Philatelic Society of Lancaster. It was a nice video from Sotheby's, the auction house that sold the British Guiana One-Cent Magenta (1956) and the U.S. 24-Cent Inverted Jenny (1918) plate block (as well as a 1933 Double Eagle gold coin). These are two ‘holy grail’ postage stamps, which were BOTH on offer from the personal collection of fashion designer and entrepreneur Stuart Weitzman.
I previously posted a video that mentioned these stamps in my blog of Jan. 21, 2021. This was from the excellent Exploring Stamps vlog of Graham Beck. Graham had another informative video a couple of years ago on the One-Cent Magenta (shown on the video still),
as well as a more recent video on the Inverted Jenny (note the printing error showing an upside down Curtiss JN-4 "Jenny" biplane):
Leading up to the auction, Graham moderated a longer discussion with Conversations With Philatelists podcast hosts Michael Cortese of the stamp dealer NobleSpirit and Charles Epting of stamp auctioneer H.R. Harmer.
Although the history and notoriety of these high-end stamps are significant, I have to admit that this discussion left me a little cold. The relevance of these stamps to my interests and the economic sphere in which I live are pretty small. Once stamp collecting becomes a competition in speculation and investing by the uber-wealthy, I just don't much care. Perhaps my attitude was colored by the revelations this week by ProPublica about how our wealthiest billionaire citizens (legally) avoid paying income taxes. These same people characteristically make much publicized charitable contributions from which they reap tax and prestige benefits, but society would be better off if they instead paid their fair share of taxes.
In reading about the One-Cent Magenta, I learned that John E. du Pont, heir to the du Pont fortune and an avid philatelist, bought this stamp in 1980. It was later sold by his estate in 2014. Du Pont in the meantime had developed a fascination with wrestling, founded the Foxcatcher wrestling facility, and, after increasingly bizarre behavior, eventually murdered world class wrestler Dave Schultz. This story was the basis of the 2014 feature film Foxcatcher, and also (a better) documentary Team Foxcatcher (2016). Maybe it's not fair, but this du Pont confluence of extreme wealth, high-priced stamp collecting, and mental illness did not enhance my appreciation for the world of super valuable stamp acquisition. (Very annoying - in the Foxcatcher movie, the word philately was consistently mispronounced with a long a).
In the end, the Inverted Jenny plate block was bought by a private equity entrepreneur, setting a record of almost $5 million for the sales price of a U.S. stamp. The One-Cent Magenta did not live up to the hype for a possible record-setting price, but was bought by the eponomous stamp dealing company Stanley Gibbons for over $8 million. Stanley Gibbons says it wants to offer you "your very own piece". Could this be an example of a non-fungible token in the making?
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| Joke - an inverted (spinning) jenny |