NEW UAE STAMPS COST OVER £600

The United Arab Emirates have issued a set of four postage stamps with a total face value of approximately £613, with one of the ‘Golden Jubilee’ stamps containing a 1g fine gold bar.

A closer inspection of the ‘stamps’ reveals they are not quite the same as the standard postage stamps you would pick up at your local post office, since they are the latest in a growing list of non-fungible token (NFT) stamps. The set comes as four physical ‘stamp cards’ but each has a ‘digital twin’ that can be collected in a digital crypto wallet.

The description on the Emirates Post website explains: ‘The NFT stamp card is a high-quality credit card-sized plastic card comprised of 5 PVC layers and the gold bar is laminated into the card itself. The Golden Jubilee NFT stamp pack also includes a regular physical stamp of the same design without the gold bar… The design is of the UAE desert landscape and invokes the journey of the founding fathers, starting from meetings in the desert to forming the country of the future.’

A crypto-stamp consists of two parts: a traditional physical stamp which can be used to post your mail – though it is unlikely any are being used for this purpose – or collected just like any other stamp and, crucially, a digital image of a stamp which is stored on a blockchain – a digital ledger – and can be viewed, collected, sold or traded. Many post offices are issuing the digital stamps, including Austria, Gibraltar, USA, and Switzerland, and many of these crypto-stamps have gone up in value since they were issued.

Read more about crypto-stamps in our special guide at: www.allaboutstamps.co.uk/stamp-guides