Original Blog Entry: Unique 90- cents stamps sells for $400,000

truesee — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 16:09:42 GMT

Stamp recovered after 40 years is sold

Published: June 14, 2009 at 11:12 PM

NEW YORK, June 14 (UPI) -- A unique U.S. stampstolen in 1967 and recovered almost 40 years later has sold at auction for more than $400,000, the auctioneer said Sunday.

Dr. Arthur K.M. Woo, a prominent collector, bought the Ice House Cover, Scott Trepel, president of Robert A. Siegel Auctions in New York, said in a statement.

The item was auctioned Saturday.

The Ice House Cover is an envelope bearing a 90-cent Abraham Lincoln stamp. It gets its name because it was mailed in 1873 from a Boston ice company to its ice house in Calcutta.

The envelope was discovered in India by a U.S. collector. In 1967, it was stolen from J. David Baker, an Indianapolis collector, by a team of thieves targeting members of the American Philatelic Society.

The FBI recovered most of Baker's collection in 1974, but the Ice House Cover remained missing. In January 2006, an elderly couple -- who said they found it while clearing out a dead relative's house -- brought it to a dealer in Chicago, wanting to know if it was worth anything. The dealer turned it over to the FBI and Baker's widow was eventually determined to be the rightful owner.

King Features Syndicate

The Ice House cover is the only known envelope that has one of the 90-cent stamps attached to it.

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