Treskilling Banco Yellow:
The “Treskilling” Yellow, or three schilling banco yellow is an ‘error of colour’ that occurred on a Swedish postage stamp of which only one example is known to exist. Its regular colour was green, so we don’t know how this error occurred. The Treskilling was part of a 5-stamp set issued by Sweden in 1855 and these five stamps continued to be used until Sweden introduced a new ‘ore’ currency on 1st July 1858.
The stamp illustrated below was cancelled at Nya Kopparberget (now known as Kopparberg), about 150 kilometres (93 miles) from Uppsala, on July 13, 1857
1855-58 Sweden – Tre Skilling ‘banco yellow’
- It was last sold at a public auction in 2010
- It was estimated to sell at between £1.29 million and £1.73 million
- The winning bid was kept confidential
- It has since been sold privately (in 2013)
In 1855, Sweden issued its first postage stamps, in a set of five values depicting the Swedish coat of arms, with denominations ranging from 3 to 24 Swedish skillings. The three-skilling stamp was normally printed in a blue-green color, with the eight-skilling stamp being printed in yellowish orange (banco yellow).
1855 Sweden (Set of 5) with 3 skilling green and 8 skilling yellow
These stamps were Sweden’s first stamps, and they were printed between 1855 and the end of July 1858. It is thought that the error in colour may have occurred towards the end of the series in 1858.
It is not known exactly what went wrong, but the most likely explanation is that a stereotype of the eight-skilling printing plate (which consisted of 100 stereotypes assembled into a 10 × 10 array) was damaged or broken, and it was mistakenly replaced with a three-skilling.
- The number of stamps printed in the wrong colour is unknown
- Thus far, only one example has been found.
Provenance:
Somehow, this error went entirely unnoticed at the time, and by 1858 the Swedish currency was changed. The skilling stamps were replaced by new stamps denominated in “öre”. In 1886, a young collector named Georg Wilhelm Backman was going through covers in his grandmother’s attic at the farm Väster Munga Gård north of Västerås, and came across one with a three-skilling stamp, for which the Stockholm stamp dealer Heinrich Lichtenstein was offering seven kronor apiece.
- At this time, it was recognised as a colour variety
- It was thought that other examples would surface in time
After it had changed hands several times, Sigmund Friedl sold it to Philipp von Ferrary in 1894, who had at that time the largest known stamp collection in the world, and paid the sum of 4,000 Austro-Hungarian gulden.
- As time passed, no other “3sk yellows” surfaced
- It became clear that the stamp was extremely rare (possibly the only survivor)
When Ferrary’s collection was auctioned in the 1920s, Swedish Baron Eric Leijonhufvud bought the yellow stamp, and then Claes A. Tamm bought it in 1926 for £1,500 sterling in order to complete his collection of Swedish stamps.
- In 1928, the stamp was sold to the lawyer Johan Ramberg for £2,000
- In 1937, King Carol II of Romania purchased it from Harmers for £5,000
- In 1950 it went to Rene Berlingen for an unknown sum
In the 1970s, the Swedish Postal Museum caused controversy by declaring the stamp to be a forgery, but after examinations by two different commissions, it was agreed that this was a genuine stamp.
- In 1984, the yellow stamp made headlines when it was sold by David Feldman for 977,500 Swiss francs
- In 1990, Feldman re-sold it for over $1,000,000
- In 1996, Feldman sold it again – this time for 2,880,000 Swiss francs
- Each successive sale was a world record price for a postage stamp
On May 22, 2010, the tre skilling banco yellow was auctioned (once again) by David Feldman in Geneva, Switzerland and it was reported that it sold “for at least the $2.3 million price [that] it set a record for in 1996”.
- The buyer was allegedly an “international consortium”
- The seller was a financial firm auctioning the stamp to pay the former owner’s debt
- The exact price and the identity of the buyer were not disclosed and all bidders reportedly were sworn to secrecy; however, the auctioneer stated that it was “still worth more than any other single stamp” at that time
- The buyer was later identified as Armand Rousso
In May 2013 the stamp was acquired in a private sale by Count Gustaf Douglas, a Swedish nobleman and politician.
Given that the auction house receives commission from both buyer and seller, it is likely that Feldman (an Irish auctioneer now resident in Switzerland) received more in fees than the actual stamp is worth.
Further Reading:
- Åhman, Sven (1976). The Yellow Three Skilling Banco. Malmö: R.M. Skogs Förlags AB
- Bjäringer, Tomas with Gustaf Douglas (2005). Sweden Number One: the 3 Skilling Banco. Limassol: James Bendon
- Feldman, David (1996). The Treskilling Yellow; The Unique Error of Color: The World’s Most Valuable Stamp. Geneva: David Feldman SA
- Fimmerstad, Lars (2004). The Treskilling Yellow: The Most Valuable Thing in the World. Stockholm: Argumentor AB
Other Stamps / Envelopes / Postcards in this series:
- Stamps of the World – a list of stamp issuing countries (past & present)
- Irish Diaspora Letters – an A-Z list of incoming mail to Ireland from abroad
- Rare Stamps – a list of the rarest stamps in the world (old & new)
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