The collection of postage stamps brought the British Queen Elizabeth II about £ 100 million (9.9 billion rubles), reports the Daily Mirror.
Philately has been one of Elizabeth II’s hobbies for many decades. During this time, she has collected many of the rarest stamps. The vault at St James’s Palace in London is said to contain about 300 albums and 200 boxes of the Queen’s stamps.
The main rarity in her collection is considered “Blue Mauritius” – the first stamp, which in 1847 was printed on the island of Mauritius, which was part of the British Empire. Elizabeth II inherited it from her grandfather, King George V, who ruled Great Britain at the beginning of the 20th century. He purchased Mauritius Blue at auction in 1904 for £ 1,450. A hundred years later, the value of the brand has grown more than a thousand times and was estimated at two million pounds (198.7 million rubles).
Sometimes surplus stamps are put up for sale, and with the help of the queen replenishes her collection. One of the sales, which Elizabeth II arranged in 2001, featured 200 stamps. Then the queen earned 750 thousand pounds (74.5 million rubles) and spent a third of this amount on the purchase of a unique set of 10 “Black Pennies” – the first postage stamps in history, issued in 1840.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Elizabeth II spent most of the year in isolation, refusing official meetings and visits, which usually made up most of her working day. At the same time, the courtiers note that the queen still avoids idleness. The Daily Mirror suggests that she may have spent some of the free time parsing her philatelic collection.