Rare 1948 Gandhi 10-rupee Purple Brown and Lake ‘Service’ stamp
A set of four rare stamps featuring with portraits of Mahatma Gandhi has been sold for a record £500,000 at an auction in the UK which, its seller said, is the highest price ever paid for Indian stamps.
Only 13 of the 1948 Gandhi 10-rupee Purple Brown and Lake ‘Service’ stamps are in circulation. The block of four was sold to a private Australian collector for the highest ever price for Indian stamps, said UK-based dealer Stanley Gibbons.
The Indian stamps were particularly rare owing to the fact they were in a set of four.
From the issued sheet, supplied to the Governor-General’s Secretariat, only 13 single examples are authoritatively recorded, including this strip of four and a block of four in the Royal Philatelic Collection, owned by Queen Elizabeth II, which is believed to be the world’s largest and most valuable private stamp collection, Gibbons said in a statement.
“The recent sale follows that of another Indian philatelic rarity, the famous ‘Four Annas’, which sold in March this year for almost £110,000,” the statement said.
However, the record price for a stamp sold an auction is $9.5 million (£7.4 million).
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