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Lincoln stamp: Stolen, found, sold for $431,000

It disappeared in 1967 and resurfaced 39 years later in Chicago

Image: Lincoln stamp
AP
A 136-year-old stamped envelope known to collectors as "The Ice House Cover" carries a rare Abraham Lincoln stamp. It was stolen from an Indiana collector in 1967, surfaced 39 years later in Chicago and was sold at auction by the Robert A. Siegel Auction Galleries, Inc., in New York on Saturday.
updated 12:32 a.m. ET June 14, 2009

NEW YORK - A rare Abraham Lincoln stamp that was stolen from Indiana in 1967 and surfaced 39 years later in Chicago has sold at auction for more than $430,000.

The stamped envelope was auctioned Saturday at Manhattan's Robert A. Siegel galleries.

The buyer is Arthur K.M. Woo, a doctor who would reveal nothing more about himself.

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He paid $431,250 for the 90-cent stamp, against a pre-sale estimate of $300,000 to $400,000, including the buyer's premium.

The so-called Ice House Cover with Lincoln's likeness is on an envelope mailed from Boston to an ice house in India in 1873.

The stamp vanished from its owner's safe in Indianapolis and turned up in 2006 at a home in Chicago. A collector notified police.

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