"By weight and volume and size, it’s the most valuable item in the world"

It's a bull market in assets folks.
From the New York Times:

Stamp Sells for a Record $9.5 Million

David N. Redden auctioning the One-Cent Magenta from British Guiana at Sotheby’s on Tuesday. The stamp, which was printed by a newspaper and issued in 1856, is believed to be unique. Credit Michael Nagle for The New York Times

A tiny square of very old red paper with cut corners — a one-cent postage stamp from the 19th century — sold for $9.5 million on Tuesday, the most ever paid for a stamp at auction, but $500,000 short of the auction house’s $10 million to $20 million presale estimate.

The buyer, bidding by telephone at Sotheby’s on the Upper East Side, was not identified. The auctioneer, David N. Redden, opened the bidding at $4.5 million — $5.4 million once a 20 percent buyer’s premium was added.

The bids climbed in $500,000 increments to $7.5 million. After three more offers a bid hit $7.9 million, closing the auction at $9.5 million with the buyer’s premium.

Mr. Redden said he was anything but disappointed. “When you compare it to the record for stamps in recent history,” he said, “this is a real leap beyond prior levels.”

The last stamp to draw such attention at auction was the Treskilling Yellow, a Swedish stamp that sold for about $2.2 million in 1996, equal to about $3.3 million today....MORE