Portal:Philately/Stamp of the month archive/11



The "Treskilling" Yellow, or 3 skilling banco error of color, is a postage stamp of Sweden, and the most valuable stamp in the world. To date no other example has been found, so is most likely the only one in existence.

The 3-skilling banco value of the first postage stamps of Sweden, issued in 1855, was normally printed in a blue-green color, while the 8-skilling was printed in a yellowish orange shade. In 1886, a young collector named Georg Wilhelm Baeckman was going through covers in his grandmother's attic, and came across one with a 3-skilling stamp printed in the yellowish orange shade of the 8-skilling.

Each time it has been sold it has set world records. In 1984 the stamp made headlines when it was sold by David Feldman for 977,500 Swiss francs. A 1990 sale realised over one million US dollars and in 1996 it sold again for 2,500,000 Swiss francs.