A wonderful piece of history

Today I navigated to the New Haven Register website to catch up on some local news. Instead, I came across THIS ARTICLE about the famous "Treskilling Yellow" stamp once again going up for auction.

The stamp, known to me as the Treskilling Banco, is of importance because it was postmarked in 1857 in Kopparberg, Sweden - my hometown of 3,100 people (You can see "Kopp" on the postmark). It was a big part of history growing up, and there's a museum in my town dedicated to the stamp.

There's even a celebration on July 13 every year - the day the stamp was postmarked.

The Treskilling Banco stamp is worth more than $2 million, and all because of a mistake. You see, the stamp was supposed to be green, but due to a misprint, it was printed in yellow.

At the time, it was worth 3 shillings - less than a penny. The boy who found it, Georg Wilhelm Backman, sold it to a stamp collector for about $1 in 1886.

Today, it's the most valuable stamp in the world.