A one-off letter went under the hammer at the auction of the stamp collection of the former Tengelmann boss Erivan Haub for 145,000 euros in Wiesbaden. It is a foreign letter that was sent from Hanover to Chile in 1861 - the starting bid at the auction on Saturday was 50,000 euros. Its value results from its uniqueness, announced the stamp auction house Heinrich Köhler in Wiesbaden. Two bidders would have fought. The letter was last auctioned in 2013 in the same auction house for 76,000 euros, said a spokesman.
The so-called first day cover, which the sender posted on the first day of validity of the Hanoverian postage stamps used, was reported to have reached Chile on an adventurous journey: Among other things, it traveled with the Panama Railway from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific coast of South America and from there on by ship.
A letter from the Oldenburger Kunstverein with the postage stamps of the Duchy of Oldenburg from 1861, sent to Zurich, was also to come under the hammer.
The starting bid was 20,000 euros.
Significant collection
The stamp collection of the former Tengelmann boss has been auctioned off in Wiesbaden for several years.
An anonymous bidder spent exactly 1.26 million euros in 2019 on the "Baden-Fehldruck 9 Kreuzer" stamp from the Haub collection.
When the stamp was printed in 1851, green instead of pink paper was accidentally used, creating a philatelic celebrity.
Former Tengelmann boss Haub died in 2018 at the age of 85.
The billionaire had headed the company based in Mülheim an der Ruhr for more than 30 years and expanded Tengelmann into an international trading group.
Auctions worldwide are planned for the auction of the entire Erivan collection.
According to experts, the entrepreneur has assembled one of the most important collections of the past hundred years in the course of his life.
One of the highlights of the auction on Saturday was a letter from Germany's oldest seaside resort, Heiligendamm, with a starting bid of 30,000 euros.
There were also newly discovered finds, including a burned letter from the Zeppelin "Hindenburg" that exploded on landing in Lakehurst, America.
Despite the damage, the letter was sent to the recipient in a cellophane sleeve in 1937.