Stamp recovered after 40 years is sold

NEW YORK, June 14 (UPI) -- A unique U.S. stamp stolen in 1967 and recovered almost 40 years later has sold at auction for more than $400,000, the auctioneer said Sunday.

Dr. Arthur K.M. Woo, a prominent collector, bought the "Ice House Cover," Scott Trepel, president of Robert A. Siegel Auctions in New York, said in a statement.

The item was auctioned Saturday.

The "Ice House Cover" is an envelope bearing a 90-cent Abraham Lincoln stamp. It gets its name because it was mailed in 1873 from a Boston ice company to its ice house in Calcutta.

The envelope was discovered in India by a U.S. collector. In 1967, it was stolen from J. David Baker, an Indianapolis collector, by a team of thieves targeting members of the American Philatelic Society.

The FBI recovered most of Baker's collection in 1974, but the "Ice House Cover" remained missing. In January 2006, an elderly couple -- who said they found it while clearing out a dead relative's house -- brought it to a dealer in Chicago, wanting to know if it was worth anything. The dealer turned it over to the FBI and Baker's widow was eventually determined to be the rightful owner.