Putting a stamp on to history
It may be the size of a gold coin but it’s worth £40,000 (NZ$70,660).
The penny claret stamp from the 1906 Christchurch Exhibition is so rare, its market value jumps to £50,000 (NZ$88,325) if it had been used, philatelic dealer Warwick Jost said.
‘‘It’s probably the dearest stamp in New Zealand,’’ the Katikati man said. ‘‘I’ve seen one but I’ve never had one in my collection.’’
This issue was the first set of large stamps to be designed, engraved and printed entirely within the country and the stamps were only on sale at the post office in the Christchurch Exhibition.
But exhibition organisers were unhappy with the red colouring and had them reprinted, destroying the original stamp except for one sheet that went to the Postmaster-General, one to exhibition organisers, and 14 that were retained by the Post and Telegraph department.
Jost said while several mint stamps were in circulation, the used copies had been cancelled just days after the exhibition post office closed - thus the used stamp’s extraordinary value.
While no one at the Taranaki Philatelic Society’s annual stamp fair had a penny claret, there were collectibles worth thousands floating around the Blind Foundation at Vivian St on Saturday.
Jost, who had been collecting stamps since he was a young boy, sat at a booth offering about $100,000 worth of stamps for sale.
Stamp collector Phil Bates hovered nearby. In his hands were a number of New Zealand stamps dating back decades.
Next to Jost’s booth sat father and daughter Alan and Kirsten Craig.
The pair had come from Hamilton for the single day event.
He had a 10-cent coin-sized purple stamp from 1926 valued at $10,000, but with a $5500 price tag.
‘‘It’s a dying hobby, so you have to be realistic,’’ he said.