It was not her love of Scottish dancing or her horse riding skills, but rather her passion for stamp collecting that reportedly enabled Queen Elizabeth II to leave her son an impressive collection estimated to be worth over £100 million.
For generations, British monarchs have left their families a large stamp collection that Queen Elizabeth II inherited from her father at the start of her reign, The Mirror reported Sunday.
But if the booklets were valued at more than £2 million in 2002, according to The Telegraph, they would be worth at least £100 million today, four philatelic experts estimated in The Guardian. last April, a few months after his death last September.
In total, according to The Mirror, the impressive collection would today consist of more than 300 albums and 200 boxes, which would be stored in a vault at Saint-James Palace.
Among them, the Queen held an 1847 postage stamp from the Mauritius Post Office, considered one of the most valuable in the world, auctioned by her grandfather King George V in 1904 for £1,450.
The collection began in 1864 during the reign of Queen Victoria, who bequeathed her works to her son, Prince Alfred. The latter would then have given everything to his brother, King Edward VII, before the collection fell into the hands of Elizabeth II after passing between that of his father, King George VI, and his grandfather, King George V.
RT(YA)280