Stamp collection set to make £20m mark

A STAMP collection could be set to break records by fetching in excess of £20 million at auction.

The Chartwell Collection of stamps will be sold over the next 18 months in a series of nine auctions at Spink auctioneers in London.

Eight experts at Spink have studied the stamps and believe the collection is the most valuable to be auctioned in modern times.

Olivier Stocker, chairman and chief executive of Spink, said: "The Chartwell Collection is, without a shadow of a doubt, one of the biggest 'wow' moments we have ever experienced here. It is a great pleasure to be a part of these momentous sales."

Collector, businessman and philanthropist Sir Cyril Humphrey Cripps assembled the stamps from the 1950s until his death in 2000.

The first sales will take place on 28 and 29 June.