A highly sought-after rare set of ‘Red Monkey’ stamps to celebrate the 1980 Year of the Monkey was sold for a record $184,000 at a Hong Kong auction on Sunday, the organiser said.
The stamps were originally expected to fetch HK$1.1 million-1.2 million (USD141,000-154,000) but they were bought by an Asian collector for HK$1.44 million when the hammer fell, auction house Zurich Asia said.
The auctioneer said the sale broke a previous world record when a similar set of the stamps was sold for HK$1.2 million in the southern Chinese city, a major auction hub thanks to cash-rich mainland Chinese buyers.
Mainland Chinese are regular buyers of the top lots at sales of art, jewellery and wine as Hong Kong positions itself as an auction hub for Asia as well as the gateway to China's vast market.