Overview

When it was issued in 1856, it cost a penny. In 2014, this tiny square of faded red paper sold at Sotheby's for nearly $10 million, the largest amount ever paid for a postage stamp at auction. Through the stories of the eccentric characters who have bought, owned, and sold the One-Cent Magenta in the years in between, James Barron delivers a fascinating tale of global history and immense wealth, and of the human desire to collect. One-cent magentas were provisional stamps, printed quickly when a shipment of official stamps from London did not arrive in British Guiana. They were mostly thrown out with the newspapers; one stamp survived. The singular One-Cent Magenta has had nine owners since a twelve-year-old boy rediscovered it in 1873. He soon sold it for what would be $17 today. Among later owners was a wealthy French nobleman who hid the stamp from almost everyone; a businessman who traveled with the stamp in a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist; and John E. du Pont, who died while serving a thirty-year sentence for the murder of Olympic wrestler Dave Schultz. The One-Cent Magenta explores the intersection of obsessive pursuits and great affluence and asks why we want most what is most rare.

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9781665146524

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Jonathan Yen is a commercial voice-over artist and Earphones Award-winning audiobook narrator. He was inspired by the Golden Age of Radio, and while the gold was gone by the time he got there, he has carried that inspiration through to commercial work, voice acting, and stage productions. From vintage Howard Fast science fiction to naturalist Paul Rosolie's true adventures in the Amazon, he loves to tell a good story. James Barron is a reporter on the metropolitan staff of the New York Times. He wrote the minute-by-minute stories on the 9/11 attacks for the Times on the web and the front page lead story on the 2003 blackout. He initiated the Public Lives column (later called Boldface Names) and currently writes a podcast for the Times' website summarizing the next morning's front page. James wrote the timeline summaries for The New York Times: The Complete Front Pages: 1851-2008 and is the author of Piano: The Making of a Steinway Concert Grand.

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