In New York, an exceedingly rare 19th Century postage stamp from a British colony in South America has sold for a record 9.5 million dollars at Sotheby's auction house. It took only two minutes for the British Guinea one cent magenta stamp to be sold to an anonymous bidder. The stamp had been sold three times before, each time setting the auction record for a single stamp. It measures just 1 inch by 1 inch and had not been publicly exhibited since 1986. The auction house said that apart from setting a new world record price for a stamp, it was also the most expensive item by weight and size ever sold.