A remarkable Penny Black is about to go under the hammer in an online Sotheby's auction. Experts estimate a sale price of between $1.5 million and $2.5 million. If it reaches the estimate, Sotheby’s says it will become one of the most valuable pieces of postal history ever sold at auction.
But what makes this particular example so special? Although the Penny Black was the world’s first officially issued adhesive postage stamp, it is not actually a rare stamp: 68,808,000 were produced. Because of that enormous print run, many have survived and dealers still offer large numbers of examples in a wide range of conditions and grades.
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The Penny Black was issued on 1 May 1840 by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland for use from 6 May. The example being offered by Sotheby’s is exceptional because the cover was mailed in London on 2 May 1840, four days before the official date of use. In theory, therefore, the letter should not exist. Yet it unquestionably does, making it the earliest known postal item on which a postage stamp was used. Its original recipient was William Blenkinsop Jr., the 35-year-old manager of a Victorian ironworks in Bedlington, a town in northern England. Nor is that the only unusual feature: the Penny Black was affixed to a Mulready envelope that had been turned inside out.
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The Mulready envelope was a piece of postal stationery decorated with images representing the British Empire and was not especially successful with the British public. As with all postal stationery, its purchase price included the postage, so the sender did not need to buy a separate stamp.
After receiving the letter, Blenkinsop Jr. turned the envelope back the right way round, converting it into a Mulready envelope, and posted it again two days later, on 4 May 1840. This time the addressee was Mr Blenkinsop, probably the sender’s father, who lived 75 miles away in Dalston.
The Mulready envelope had likewise been issued on 1 May 1840 for use from 6 May. A Mulready bearing a 4 May 1840 postmark should therefore not exist either – yet it does.
Mr Blenkinsop kept the envelope, but unfortunately the contents of the two letters sent inside it have disappeared, so we do not know what the senders wrote to their recipients.
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The ornate Mulready envelope has survived for more than 180 years and was also mailed with a Penny Black. It is a relic of the postal reform that transformed correspondence, communication and the transmission of information, contributing greatly to the development of the past almost two centuries. The Penny Black, depicting the then 21-year-old Queen Victoria, represented a revolution in affordable communication open to everyone; its significance can be compared with the arrival of the electric telegraph or the first email.
Bidding begins on 2 February 2024. Anyone who would like to bid 😅 (or is simply interested in the details) can do so on the Sotheby’s website.
It is difficult to predict exactly how much this extraordinary item will sell for, but we can be certain there will be a buyer. To give some context for Sotheby’s auctions: around this time last year, one of LeBron James’s jerseys sold for $3,680,000 (1.3 billion (!) forints).
The company hopes the exceptional cover will go to a wealthy stamp collector, although, admittedly, there is every chance that a Chinese investor will see the greatest potential in it and place the highest bid.