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A legendary 1897 stamp fetched HK$5.52 million, a record for a Chinese stamp, at an auction yesterday in Hong Kong.
The Red Revenue Small One Dollar,  issued during the Qing dynasty,  sold for a hammer price of HK$4.8 million plus 15 per cent of buyer's premium  levied by the auction house, Hong Kong-based InterAsia Auctions.  
With a small one-dollar overprint on a three-cent Red Revenue stamp, it is one of 32 known copies of the original 50 that were overprinted. 
Its presale estimate was HK$2.5 million to HK$3 million, and the auctioneer boasted that it was the best of the 32. The sale broke the record set by a rare 1968 stamp less than three months ago at a Hong Kong auction. 
The politically significant 1968 rarity, known as The Whole Country is Red,  does not show Taiwan on a red map of China. It sold for HK$3.68 million in November.
In September, a Beijing collector bought the Red Revenue Small One Dollar stamp for Euro226,000 (HK$2.44 million), then a record for a Chinese stamp, at an auction in Hong Kong. 
The InterAsia auction, which featured 1,800 lots of stamps from China, Hong Kong and Asia, continues today.  It is expected to fetch in excess of HK$45 million.
Another highlight was a mint block of six Small Two-Cent Red Revenue stamps,  with inverted surcharge errors. It has a presale estimate of HK$1 million to HK$1.2 million. Then there is the 'Red Ruby'  mint block of four - one of two known sets - from the 1897 Dowager Surcharge issue.  It has a presale estimate of HK$2.4 million to HK$2.8 million.
Of high contemporary interest is the special catalogue of the 'Treasures of the Cultural Revolution', including a stamp showing Mao Zedong  and Lin Biao   on the balcony at Tiananmen Square under a blue sky. The issue was to have been destroyed after Lin was condemned as a traitor following his death in 1971.  
A copy of The Whole Country is Red also goes under the hammer but it is unclear whether it was the same as the one that fetched HK$3.68 million in September.



1897 stamp fetches record  HK$5.52m at city auction