Bloomberg — Bond billionaire Bill Gross auctioned 100 stamps worth $18.1 million in New York on Friday, June 14, which represents the penultimate phase of the liquidation of his vast collection, which has lasted several years. The sale, which was conducted by Robert A. Siegel Auction Galleries Inc, is the first part of a two-part auction, which had a pre-sale estimate of between US$15 and US$20 million. The second tranche, which represents only 5% of the pre-sale estimate value, will go to auction on Saturday.
Not including Friday’s auction, Gross has sold more than $24 million from his US stamp collection through Robert A. Siegel Auction Galleries; Before that, he sold approximately US$30 million of his international stamps through Shreves Philatelic Galleries, according to a spokesperson for the auction house.
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In statements to Bloomberg TV Before the sale, Gross said that “I am 80 years old and it is time to pass this on to other future collectors”and went on to say that “I also think a slight negative here is that stamp collecting has always been about children, who later become wealthy adults. But in this case I don’t think children will continue collecting stamps”.
“This is a collection that very few people in the world could put together”said Scott Trepel, president of Siegel Auctions, to Bloomberg TV. “There are stamps that are so rare that I don’t care how much money you have; You’re going to need longevity because it could be a generation before they appear [de nuevo]”.
Operations at a United States Postal Service sorting facilityPostage stamps in an envelope inside the United States Postal Service (USPS) sorting center in Louisville, Kentucky, USA.(Bloomberg/Luke Sharrett)
The top lot of the sale was the extremely rare 1868 “Z” Grill one cent stamp, of which only two examples are known. (The other has been in the New York Public Library for a century.) It was expected to sell for between US$4 and US$5 million, but its final price was US$4.4 million.
It was not the only stamp that sold for more than $1 million. A 15-cent Z Grill stamp featuring Abraham Lincoln’s face was estimated to sell for $1.5 million to $2 million, and hammered for $2.35 million.
In the same interview, Gross said he was inspired to collect stamps by his mother, who had intended to invest in stamps to put him through college. “She had the right idea but bought the wrong stamps,” he said, which made him realize that “if I can apply the terminology and economic philosophy of the bond market to the stamp auction,” he continued, “then maybe too “We can earn some money.”
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