The One-Cent Magenta: Inside the Quest to Own the Most Valuable Stamp in the World

by James Barron Narrated by Jonathan Yen

Overview

When it was issued in 1856, it cost a penny. In 2014, this tiny square of faded red paper sold at Sotheby's for nearly $10 million, the largest amount ever paid for a postage stamp at auction. Through the stories of the eccentric characters who have bought, owned, and sold the One-Cent Magenta in the years in between, James Barron delivers a fascinating tale of global history and immense wealth, and of the human desire to collect.



One-cent magentas were provisional stamps, printed quickly when a shipment of official stamps from London did not arrive in British Guiana. They were mostly thrown out with the newspapers; one stamp survived. The singular One-Cent Magenta has had nine owners since a twelve-year-old boy rediscovered it in 1873. He soon sold it for what would be $17 today. Among later owners was a wealthy French nobleman who hid the stamp from almost everyone; a businessman who traveled with the stamp in a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist; and John E. du Pont, who died while serving a thirty-year sentence for the murder of Olympic wrestler Dave Schultz.



The One-Cent Magenta explores the intersection of obsessive pursuits and great affluence and asks why we want most what is most rare.

Editorial Reviews

The New York Times Book Review - Sarah Laskow

Barron recognizes that for most people stamps' romance has long since dissipated, but he succeeds in showing why this one stamp, at least, is still alluring.

From the Publisher

(An) absorbing tale of the rarefied world of high-stakes philately.”
— Library Journal
 
“Delightful.”
—The Washington Post
 
“Quirky and informative.”
—Publishers Weekly
 
“A scintillating foray into ‘what makes something collectible, valuable, and enduring.’”
— Kirkus Reviews
 
“This delightful short book is a good bet for readers of nonfiction, especially those who enjoy microhistories.”
—Booklist
 
“Exhilarating.”
—Seattle Book Review
 
“Interesting…Even without an interest in stamps and their collection, one should find this book worthy of reading as it winds its way through the years and the various intrigues and machinations which characterize this singular and valuable item.”
—New York Journal of Books

“The voyage into Stamp World is like the world itself: detailed, ruminative and filled with arcane detours ultimately leading to a destination whose rewards are subtle yet satisfying.”
—Minneapolis Star Tribune
 
“Barron’s layered, complex genealogy-of-motivations for the stamp’s suitors becomes the narrative’s yeasty and compelling attraction.”
—Washington Independent Review of Books

“Compelling.”
—The Chronicle-Telegram (Elyria, OH)
 

Kirkus Reviews

2016-12-19
The biography of a very special stamp.The "Mona Lisa of stamps" was born—or printed—in British Guiana in 1856. As a mere, "provisional" one-cent stamp used to send out several hundred periodicals before the real stamps arrived by ship, its birth was unheralded. It was, as New York Times reporter Barron (Piano: The Making of a Steinway Concert Grand, 2006) notes, "overlooked and forgotten." The author first heard about the unique stamp at a party, and when he was told how much it might soon fetch at auction as part of the John E. DuPont estate, he had to know more. Barron turns this seemingly insignificant story into a thoroughly entertaining tale of speculation and investigation into "Stamp World, an arcane parallel universe peopled by collectors who are crazed and crazy, obsessed and obsessive." The first stop in the journey is 1873, when a 12-year-old boy found the stamp in his uncle's house and sold it to a novice collector for six shillings, the equivalent of "$16.83 in today's dollars." The stamp was soon sold to another collector, who then sold it to an eccentric Paris aristocrat and collector. When his entire collection was auctioned off in the early 1920s, the stamp was cataloged as "the only known example." Then, it was purchased by an anonymous, wealthy buyer, Arthur Hind, from Utica, New York for $32,500. Barron recounts the perhaps apocryphal story that Hind was approached by a man who claimed that he also had a one-center. According to the tale, Hind bought it and then burned it up with his cigar, saying, mischievously, "there's only one magenta one-cent Guiana." The author whimsically follows the stamp's long journey right up to where his story began: the record-breaking auction. A scintillating foray into "what makes something collectible, valuable, and enduring."

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170127443
Publisher:	HighBridge Company
Publication date:	03/07/2017
Edition description:	Unabridged

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