Rare stamps to deliver £20k auction fortune

It cost the equivalent of just 4p to send to Edinburgh in 1840.

Now, 170 years on, a rare envelope - or rather the stamps stuck on it - will fetch up to 20,000 at auction.

The letter was sent to law firm Dickson and Stuart Esquires, of 17 India Street, from Inverary on August 28, 1840, just four months after the introduction of Britain's first adhesive postage stamp, the Penny Black.

The envelope - which features a block of four Two Pence Blue and two Penny Blacks - is particularly valuable because of what auctioneer Spink describes as its "outstanding and rare" combination of stamps. It might even be unique.

Dominic Savastano, a stamps expert at Spink, said: "It is such a stunning item. It is a big rarity to find this combination of stamps on a cover and that is what makes it something very special."

The two penny blue stamp was the second British adhesive postage stamp, issued in 1840, shortly after the launch of the Penny Black.

It cost only one old penny to send a letter in 1840, but because the Edinburgh envelope features stamps worth ten old pennies, or about 4p in modern money, it is thought that the envelope may have originally contained legal documents.

The Edinburgh envelope has been put up for sale by multi-millionaire meat baron, Lord Vestey, 69, affectionately known in gossip columns as "Spam" Vestey. According to the 2010 Sunday Times Rich List, he and his family are worth an estimated 750 million.

The year 1840 was eventful in other ways.

It was the year that Queen Victoria, 21, wed Prince Albert, explorer David Livingstone left Britain for Africa, Thomas Hardy was born and Charles Dickens started serialising his latest book, The Old Curiosity Shop.

The Edinburgh envelope will be auctioned at Spink in Bloomsbury, London, on September 9.