Only two copies of the “Black Honduras,” considered the world’s rarest air mail stamp, were known to exist, and one of them has been lost. The surviving example, which Cherrystone Auctions will offer on January 11, set a record at a 1961 auction in New York when it fetched a record $24,500–at the time the most ever paid at an American auction for a single stamp. This time around in New York it’s expected to fly quite a bit higher, to $125,000.
Another interesting air post series in the sale is a Columbia 1920, a set of nine stamps issued for the Compania Colombiana de Nevegacion Aerea. Fewer than 100 of these sets were produced. The one on offer, complete and unused, carries an estimate of $62,400.
