The UK is the home of the oldest stamps in the world but what are the most valuable UK stamps?
We should add a note here. The UK’s pioneering issue of Penny Blacks in May 1840 was the first adhesive postage stamp paid by the sender in a standardised postal system, but postal systems are older than this and some used handstamps and other documents to record payment.
And other countries were very quick to take up the breakthrough. In part, because they’d been considering similar systems themselves.
It really is a far better way to manage a postal system and it had an enormous impact. It’s often cited as one of the reasons for the explosion of literacy in the UK in the 19th century - reading and became everyday necessities.
GB stamp collecting (philatelists usually use GB rather than UK, as the country was called Great Britain when stamps were invented) is an excellent focus for any stamp collector.
In fact, if you want to get really serious you should probably specialise at a more granular level.
We don’t expect that every collector - or even many collectors - will have the resources for these treasures though.
Some will never be sold again. You'll have to be content with looking.
Here we will focus on GB stamps from the UK. So, not stamps in colonies of the British Empire. These are the most valuable UK stamps.
1 - 1841 Penny Red Plate 77 
The Penny Red was introduced in 1841 as the successor to the Penny Black and served as the primary postage stamp in the United Kingdom until 1879.
Penny Blacks were wonderful, but the cancellations (the handstamped, dated postage mark) could be removed from black backgrounds too easily. So, in came the red.
Initially, Perkins, Bacon & Co, simply inked up the same plates in a different colour.
Improvements were made along the way. But the 77th plate is the most valuable plate because it was considered so poor quality that it could not be released to the public.
A plate 77 Penny Red was sold for £495,000 in 2016. It is one of five known to exist, and one of those is in the British museum.
2 - 6d Pale Purple Edward VII stamp
The Penny Red that’s worth money is valuable because it was poor quality. The 6d Pale Purple has that other beloved philatelic quality - it was withdrawn.
One was sold in 2010 for £410,000. Others have made over £100,000 at auction.
It’s been such a hot potato that collectors have been arrested for owning them.
The IR Official overprint across the stamp identifies it as an Inland Revenue stamp, designed to be used by government departments.
Better comms would have stopped the printing. On the day it was issued, these government stamps were withdrawn. 19 sheets were printed, and almost all of them were destroyed.
How they got to stamp collectors in the first instance is a bit of a mystery, but now, if you find one you should expect to realise over £100,000 for it.
3 - Penny Black imprimatur
So Penny Black’s are a very broad category.
New collectors are often delighted to discover that they can buy the World’s First Stamp relatively cheaply.
It’s all about which Penny Black - and that can mean the plate, like our very rare Penny Red. And the condition. Groups are very valuable. And used stamps can be very valuable, particularly if they can be dated to the first day of issue.
The most valuable is a 2011 sale of the Plate One imprimatur for £216,000.
These aren’t issued stamps, but the final test prints made before a stamp does enter public circulation.
This one came from sheet one, and crucially from the bottom corner of that sheet with large margins.
The Penny Black is a fine specialisation and more accessible than you may think if you want to pursue it. You can see some of the Penny Blacks we have to offer here.
4 - 2d Tyranian Plum 1910
Stamps are part of the historic record. And here a stamp encounters “events, dear boy, events.”
This rather smart stamp was ready to go when, on May 6, 1910 King Edward VII died.
State machiney often moves slowly, and stamps (and coins) designed with one head of state in mind are kept in circulation for as long as possible. But on this occasion, the plug was pulled and as many as 24 million stamps were simply junked.
But…
Some survived.
One of them in the hands of King George V, the “stamp collecting king” who succeeded his father.
Another - in the legendary Chartwell Collection - was sold in 2011 for $159,000.
The biggest collection is held by the British Postal Museum who hold a full sheet of unperforated stamps and a nearly full sheet of perforated ones. Their value cannot be calculated.
5 - £1 brown lilac 1884 
This stamp is high value from birth. High-value stamps are always rarer than cheaper stamps and usually more collectible.
1884 brown lilacs £1 are watermarked, making them even rarer.
Condition is vital to the value of the most precious of these stamps, an example sold in 2017 for £110,000.
It had unused original gum on its rear, a great indicator of quality preservation, especially on older stamps like this one.
Less distinguished versions are also valuable and it’s one to look out for in sales. We have several examples of £1 brown lilacs here.
Any of these stamps would be the gem in most collections.
You’ll be lucky to see them for sale.
If you’d like to browse our stamp sales then please click here.
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