collectible
Letter from 1859 auctioned for 180,000 euros
The starting bid for the letter, which bears the largest known number of 9-shilling stamps from 1859, was 60,000 euros. photo
© Sebastian Gollnow/dpa
The stamp collection of ex-Tengelmann boss Erivan Haub has a number of treasures to offer: a letter over 160 years old was bought at an auction in Wiesbaden for a record-breaking sum.
A valuable business letter with 9-Schilling stamps, which went from Hamburg to New York via Liverpool in 1859, changed hands at an auction on Saturday for 180,000 euros. The letter with a starting bid of 60,000 euros was bought by a buyer on the phone, said the Heinrich Koehler auction house in Wiesbaden.
The letter bears the largest known number of 9-shilling stamps from 1859, auction house managing director Dietrich Michelson said ahead of the auction. “It is a beautiful cover with the blue background, the red stamps and the four yellow stamps.” According to the auction house, it was on the road for 16 days at the time.
The stamps are part of the 8th stamp auction of the collection of former Tengelmann boss Erivan Haub. The Haub collection has been auctioned since the summer of 2019.