Rare stamp is sold at Warwick & Warwick auction for £23,000

The sale was completed by Warwick & Warwick, the collectables auctioneers, at their auction on December 3.

The stamp (pictured right) is valuable due to the fact that some of the orange colour from the stamp is missing, therefore part of the Queen’s head is also missing. It is potentially one of 20 other stamps that may have had their colour omitted, though no others are known to have made this error. The owner of the stamp, Mr Heywood, bought it at a post office in Rochdale, Lancanshire, to add to his collection. He realised that the stamp may be valuable when he checked it at home. He quickly returned to the Post Office but by that time the rest of the sheet had been sold. Missing colours are very popular amongst collectors of modern British stamps and before the auction the stamp was described as the most important modern British stamp to be sold this century.

The stamp is listed in the Stanley Gibbons stamp catalogue as SG 755b but no price has been quoted.

The Warwick auctioneers and Mr Heywood are both delighted with the auction which follows results from British errors that have been sold by them recently.