The 10 most expensive stamps and coins ever sold

Stamps and coins are usually treated as one hobby and they are not. They have different auction houses, different grading systems and entirely separate record books. Putting them in a single ranking would mean pretending that a piece of gummed paper and a struck gold coin compete for the same buyers, which they do not. So the list below is split: the five highest prices in numismatics, then the five highest in philately, each in order.

Every figure is the price as reported at the time of the sale, with the house and the date. Because a ranking is worthless if every line is in a different currency, each heading carries the sum in US dollars, with the currency the lot was actually knocked down in directly behind it in brackets. Totals include buyer's premium where the source says so.

The five most expensive coins

1. The 1933 Double Eagle — $18,872,250

Sotheby's, New York, June 2021, and still the highest price paid for any coin. Almost the entire 1933 issue of the twenty-dollar gold piece was melted before it could circulate, and this is the only example the United States government permits to be held privately. It was sold from the collection of the shoe designer Stuart Weitzman, who had bought it in 2002 for $7.59 million.

2. The 1794 Flowing Hair silver dollar — $10,016,875

Stack's Bowers, New York, January 2013, bought by the dealer Legend Numismatics. Graded Specimen-66, it is the finest known example of the first year of United States silver dollars, and many specialists believe it was the very first one struck. The planchet was burnished before striking and a silver plug was inserted to bring it up to the legally required weight.

3. The 1787 Brasher Doubloon — $9,360,000

Heritage Auctions, January 2021, to an anonymous buyer, and the highest price paid for a gold coin at auction. Ephraim Brasher was a New York goldsmith and a neighbour of George Washington; seven of his doubloons survive and this is the finest. It had been sold at auction only twice before, in 1907 and 1979, setting a record each time.

4. The 1822 Half Eagle — $8,400,000

Stack's Bowers, March 2021, from the D. Brent Pogue collection. Three examples of this five-dollar gold piece are known and two of them sit permanently in the Smithsonian, so this is the only one anybody can buy. It is graded AU-50, which is far from perfect — a reminder that in this field rarity outranks condition when the two are in conflict.

5. The 1804 Draped Bust dollar, Class I — $7,680,000

Stack's Bowers, August 2021. Known as the King of American Coins, and not actually struck in 1804: the Class I pieces were made in the 1830s as diplomatic gifts, and this one went to the Sultan of Muscat in 1835. Graded Proof-68, it is the finest of the fifteen known. It had sold once before, in 1999, for $4.14 million.

The five most expensive philatelic items

1. The Mauritius Ball cover — about $11.9 million (€10,027,800)

Christoph Gärtner, Germany, June 2021, for €10,027,800 including premium. In 1847 Lady Gomm, the wife of the governor of Mauritius, sent out invitations to a costume ball franked with the island's first stamps, the famous POST OFFICE issues. Three of those envelopes survive: one is in the Royal Philatelic Collection, one is at the British Library, and this was the third. It is the highest price ever paid for a philatelic item.

2. The British Guiana one-cent magenta — $9,480,000

Sotheby's, New York, June 2014, sold from the estate of John du Pont. A single example is known, printed locally in 1856 on magenta paper when a shipment of stamps failed to arrive, and it looks like what it is: a scrap of paper with clipped corners. It has broken the record for a single stamp four separate times across more than a century.

3. The Japanese 500 mon with inverted centre — almost $5.8 million (€5.4 million)

David Feldman, Geneva, June 2023, in a sale run jointly with Stampedia in Tokyo. Japan's first stamps appeared in 1871 with the value printed in the middle of a dragon frame; on one sheet of the highest value the centre went in upside down, and exactly one example has ever been found, in 1973. This was the first time it had been auctioned since. The underbidder said afterwards that he had come prepared to spend four million euros.

4. The 1868 one-cent Z Grill — $4,366,000

Robert A. Siegel, New York, June 2024, from the collection of the investor Bill Gross, and a record for any United States stamp. Two Z Grills are known and the other one belongs to the New York Public Library, so this is the only one that can change hands. The record it broke belonged to an Inverted Jenny, which had made $2,006,000 at the same house in November 2023.

5. The Mauritius Bordeaux cover — about $4 million (CHF 6,175,000)

David Feldman, 1993. The only known envelope carrying both of the 1847 Mauritius POST OFFICE stamps, the one-penny orange and the twopenny blue, sent from Port Louis to a wine merchant in Bordeaux. It held the record for the highest price paid for any philatelic item for more than twenty years — which is why it sits last here on the dollar figure of the day and first in the story.

What a fundraising evening can take from this

The first thing to notice is that almost every item above is unique or close to it, and the catalogue said so plainly. Not "rare" but "two are known and one is in a library". A benefit auction rarely has anything unique, but it usually has something that cannot be bought: an afternoon with a person, a seat at a table, a piece a local artist made for this evening only. Say that in those words. The guide works through how to describe a lot so the scarcity is visible.

The second is that estimates were routinely wrong, and wrong in the useful direction. The Japanese 500 mon drew an underbidder who had planned to stop at four million euros. The 1804 dollar had doubled since its last appearance twenty-two years earlier. An estimate is a starting point for a conversation, not a prediction, and setting one low enough to invite a first bid costs nothing when two people genuinely want the object.

Third, condition mattered less than the story. The 1822 Half Eagle is graded AU-50 and the British Guiana magenta has its corners cut off. Neither is beautiful; both are the only ones available. Donors sometimes apologise for a lot that is not pristine. If it is the only one of its kind in the room, that is the wrong apology.

Finally, none of these sales happened quickly, and none of them ended on a fixed second. A late bid extended the contest rather than closing it. If your own auction runs online or over several days, the same rule should apply, and how that works is set out on the how it works page. Common questions about running lots of this kind are answered in the help centre, and you can build a lot list and rehearse an evening before committing to anything at getting started.

Prices as reported at the time of sale; totals include buyer's premium where stated.