At a Hong Kong auction, a sought-after rare set of “Red Monkey” stamps, to celebrate the 1980 Year of the Monkey, was sold for a record $184,000.
The stamps were originally expected to fetch HK$1.1 million-1.2 million ($141,000-154,000) 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.