When I was a physics undergrad, I was part of a clique of the best physics students—or so we thought. Along with Ken and Nancy, I looked down on students from all the other disciplines as well as all the other physics students—at least the ones who didn’t take all the upper division, heavily mathematical physics courses like statistical mechanics, digital signal processing, and of course, mathematical physics. In particular, we ignorantly referred to all other scientific disciplines as philately: stamp collecting. Apparently, we had not been exposed to genetics or geochronology or just about any other field of modern science.
As I learned many years later while researching one of my “dangerous” books, scientific philately is an enormously complex and beautiful part of science. Carl Linnaeus was one of the greatest scientists of all time—certainly on par with Newton, Maxwell, and Einstein—men I (rightly) considered heroes. Study of his classification of species is extremely rewarding and insightful. This is especially true as our knowledge of genetics increases and we see how accurate Linnaeus and his followers were in relating different species. But we were wrong on an even deeper level, because philately itself is anything but contemptible; it is a beautiful hobby that combines art, history, and economics—to name but a few—in a unique and rewarding manner.
I was reminded of this last night as I watched the 1963 film Charade starring the ultimate symbol of male perfection, Cary Grant and the ultimate symbol of revolting cuteness, Audrey Hepburn. This enjoyable little film is built on a foundation of our ignorance about the value of postage stamps. Three rare stamps serve as a kind of reverse MacGuffin[1]: everyone in Charade is looking for a quarter million dollars that is hidden in plain sight in the form of these stamps that have been known to everyone since the beginning of the film.
Here are the three stamps in Charade:
However, these stamps are not real according to the Internet Movie Database. But they represent real stamps:
The stamps depicted in the film are fictional counterparts of actual rare stamps, but have their values raised [lowered?] by one [order of magnitude?]. The stamps they represent are the Swedish orange
[2] 3 skilling, the “Hawaiian Missionaries” 2 cent blue and the 81 para blue Romanian “cap de bour” on blue paper, in total worth about USA$3.6 Million in 2007.
It is unclear why director Stanley Donen and art director Jean D’Eaubonne chose to create similar stamps rather than using facsimiles. As you can see in this altered still, the stamps still look quite similar.
Stamp Values
One apparent reason for using fictitious stamps is that the total value of the stamps is quite different. In the movie, they needed to be worth a quarter of a million dollars. Very rare stamps are worth quite a lot more than this.
The 1851 Hawaiian Missionaries Blue is worth $65,000 in Charade. In reality, it is currently worth slightly less than three-quarter of a million dollars. The next most valuable stamp, the 1855 Swedish Yellow 3 Skilling is worth only $85,000. I say “only” because this is a one-of-a-kind stamp. It sold for over $2 million back in 1996, and is estimated to be worth more than $3 million today. Strangely, the 1858 Romanian 81 Parale Blue that was worth the most in the film, is worth the least in reality. In the film, it is worth $100,000, but in reality is worth only $50,000.
The total real world value of the three stamps is thus $743,000 + $3,163,000 + $51,000; the total is $3,957,000, or roughly four million dollars! This is 16 times the film value of $250,000. However, Charade was released in 1963—almost fifty years ago—and the dollar ain’t worth what it used to be. Assuming a starting stamps value of $250,000 and the yearly U.S. inflation figures taken from InflationData.com, we get the following graph of the yearly inflation (the blue bars) and the value of the stamps at each year (the orange line), assuming they had increased in value only at the rate of inflation.
Given these assumptions, the quarter million dollar starting value would produce a trio worth roughly $1.8 million. This is 45% of the real trio’s current value. However, there is no reason to think the samp values do appreciate at the rate of inflation (especially US inflation). Thus, it seems likely that the value of the stamps were not the reason why the filmmakers created their own stampls. It may just be aethetics.
History
There is much more to these stamps than their values, of course. The Hawaiian Missionaries will be of great interest to anyone who has read Sarah Vowell’s history of missionary conquest of the Hawaiian islands in the 19th century. These stamps were primarily used by these missionaries to write to their families back home. This is how the stamps got their moniker.
Even more interesting, a Paris gentleman, Gaston Leroux was murdered in 1892 because of his ownership of a 2 cent Hawaiian Missionaries (this is mentioned in the film). Nothing in his home had been stolen, so the police were stumped until one of the detectives—who happened to have an interest in stamps—noticed that the victim had a stamp collection with one stamp missing: a Hawaiian Missionaries Blue 2 Cent. The police soon discovered that Hector Giroux—a friend of Leroux—also happened to have this same very rare stamp. Giroux soon confessed and was hanged; the mystery was solved!
The 3 Skilling Yellow is notable because it is supposed to be blue. Apparently, the printing element that is used to make the 8 Skilling Yellowish-Orange broke and so the element for the 3 Skilling Bluish-Green was used. When they went back to print the 3 Skilling Blue, the yellow ink from the 8 Skilling changed the 3 Skilling (theoretically) Blue stamps into 3 Skilling (actually) Yellow stamps. Only one such stamp is know to exist. Also, I am making assumptions about this process. It is never well described and no one knows for sure anyway.
There is shockingly little information available about the Romanian stamp. The following is a description of a single stamp being auctioned in Switzerland at Corinphila:
In English, this reads:
81 parale blue on grey-blue wove paper, a superb mint example without gum, with huge margins all round, very fine appearance and without faults, an excellent crisp impression with minute spots as are characteristic of the nature of the delicate wove paper utilized and are not faults. A wonderful example of this classic rarity. Just 37 examples are recorded unused, one being cut round, 15 with more major faults and at least five housed in museum collections. Illustrated in Edition d’Or on page 49 and in Handbook I on page 365, pos. 2. Signed Heimbüchler and H. Köhler; cert. Heimbüchler (2010)
The starting bid is 40,000 CHF (Swiss Francs), which is equivalent to roughly $49,500.
Charade
In a sense, there is something very silly about assigning so much value on what are, in the end, tiny pictures of ink on paper. Then again, that is all that cash is, and people get very excited about that. Each stamp tells a story. Plus it works as a great basis for Charade. And for a story-junkie like me, that means a lot. I guess I’ve matured a bit since the time when I thought anything was “just philately.”
[1] A MacGuffin is a literary device used to give a story momentum. In general, it is an item that one or more characters are determined to acquire. It usually doesn’t matter what the MacGuffin is, and in many cases, the audience is never told what it is (e.g. the contents of the case in Ronin.). All that matters is that the character wants it and this motivates her actions.
[2] As can be seen by looking at any pictures of this stamp, or reading about it, it is yellow-orange, but primarily yellow.
Still image from Charade licensed under Fair Use. The altered image is my own.
My father just related something he had heard on the Rush Limbaugh radio show. There was an interview with a fourth grader who stated that he wanted to be President of the United States when he grew up. When asked, the boy said that if he were President, he would take money away from the rich people because they are greedy. This struck me as fairly typical, simplistic moral thinking for a young child. Thus, it just isn’t very interesting. But why did Limbaugh put it on his show? Clearly, it was to show how oppressed the rich are.
My biggest problem with Netflix is that the company just isn’t that into movies. I first noticed this when watching Continental Divide via Instant Watch. I liked this film a lot when I was younger, so I know it well. As I watched it, I was shocked to see that it had been cut—with lots of dialog replacement. But there was no disclaimer at the beginning of it. They just grabbed some TV station’s copy and streamed it. I complained to Netflix’s (and I mean this sincerely) fantastic telephone support people. But of course, nothing changed.
