One of New Zealand's rarest stamps has gone under the hammer in Wellington, selling for $27,000 to an overseas buyer.
The stamp was printed to coincide with the planned 1949 visit of King George VI to New Zealand which was cancelled because the king was unwell.
The stamps were ordered to be destroyed.
"During the destruction process the person responsible for overseeing it accidentally or deliberately put some in his pocket...they have survived today. We believe there's four of them known in the world," says John Mowbray from Mowbray Collectibles.
The auction of hundreds of thousands of stamps was the largest ever held in New Zealand and worth nearly $2 million.
It also included one of the country's first stamps from 1855 which sold for $12,500.
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