Lincoln stamp: Stolen, found, now on auction block

[May 21, 2009]  NEW YORK (AP) -- A rare Abraham Lincoln stamp that was stolen from an Indiana collector in 1967 and surfaced 39 years later in Chicago will be sold at auction in New York next month.

Robert A. Siegel Auction Galleries says the so-called Ice House Cover could go for $300,000 to $400,000 at the June 13 sale.

The 90-cent stamp with Lincoln's likeness is on an envelope mailed from Boston to an ice house in Calcutta, India, in 1873. Experts say it is the only known example of such a stamp actually used for postage.

The stamp vanished from its owner's safe in Indianapolis and turned up in Chicago in 2006, when a couple said they found it in the home of a dead relative. A collector recognized the stamp and notified police.

[Associated Press]

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