00:12The Baden-9 Cruiser Error is a postage stamp error produced by the historical German state of Baden in 1851.
00:21Baden's first postage stamps were issued on May 1, 1851.
00:25The 9 Cruiser Green stamp was a color misprint of the 9 Cruiser denomination that was printed in green instead of pink.
00:34The green color was intended for the 6 Cruiser value, but apparently the paper sheets were mismatched.
00:40Only three cancelled copies and one unused copy of this error are known, but more sheets of paper may have been printed.
00:48The cancellations recorded have the numbers 4 for Ackern, 41 for Ettenheim, and 106 for Orschweier, today Malberg.
01:00Two of the known copies are on letters.
01:03The error is one of the greatest philatelic rarities in the world.
01:07The 9 Cruiser Error was not discovered until 44 years after the stamp was issued.
01:12Two letters initially were in the collection of Baron von Turkheim.
01:16The first copy was cancelled on July 20, 1851, in Orschweier.
01:21Von Turkheim sold this letter to the German Reich Post Museum.
01:25Today, it is one of the key items on display in Berlin's Museum of Post and Communication.
01:32The second copy was cancelled on August 25, 1851, in Ettenheim.
01:39This letter found its way into the collection of Philip von Farrery, whose collection was auctioned off in the 1920s.
01:47It was bought by Alfred Meyer, and afterwards it was sold through Edward Stern of Economist Stamp Company to Alfred Caspery.
01:55In 1956, it was bought by John R. Boker, who sold it in 1985 for the enormous price of 2,645,000 DM, which at the time was the highest price ever paid for a single stamp.
02:12The third copy is on a piece and was cancelled in Ackern.
02:16In 1908, it was auctioned by Gilbert & Koch.
02:19In 1919, it was sold to Theodore Champion, a Persian stamp dealer.
02:24The usual explanation for the occurrence of this error is that the printing plate was accidentally inverted.
02:30However, this theory cannot be correct because the stamp was produced in a single printing.
02:36It must be assumed that the printer had unintentionally used the wrong plate for the green paper.
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