Shoe-maker Stuart Weitzman, known for his leg-thinning boots and strappy sandals, is about to be known for something very different—as the buyer of the world’s most famous stamp, and the most expensive ever sold at auction: the British Guiana One-Cent Black on Magenta.

The stamp sold for nearly one billion times its original face value at Sotheby’s New York in June one year ago.

Mr. Weitzman purchased the tiny pink-red paper with cut corners for the steep sum of $9.5 million. The hefty price overshadowed Sheikh Saud’s bid of $7.5 million for a set of stamps sold at the same auction.

The $9.5 million figure also tops the highest price paid for the work of some of the most famous living American artists, like a Richard Prince, whose record, set in May 2014, is $8.6 million at auction.

The British Guiana.
Photo: via Sotheby’s.

Mr. Weitzman, 73, started collecting stamps at a young age growing up in Queens, but went on to fashion notoriety creating shoes for everyday wear as well as special diamond-encrusted and gold shoes for the red carpet.

He will lend his stamp to the National Postal Museum in Washington for two and a half years, reports the New York Times.

According to the paper, “to some philatelists, the One-Cent Magenta is the “Mona Lisa” of stamps.” Its front bears an image of a schooner with a Latin motto that translates to “We give and we take in return.” On its back, one will find initials of the clerk at the post office where it was originally sold, initials from its past owners, and even a doodle of a star.

The one-cent magenta on at Sotheby’s on Tuesday
Photo: Sotheby’s via AFP

The One-Cent Magenta’s history is peculiar as it was commissioned by the colonial postmaster in British Guiana when a shipment of stamps from London did not arrive. It was printed locally and as a result is aesthetically less elegant than stamps from London.

Also notable is its provenance. Once owned by American textile industrialist Arthur Hind, who outbid King George V of England and King Carol II of Romania by paying $32,500, it’s last known owner before Weitzman was John E. du Pont, the infamous heir to the du Pont chemical fortune who died in prison in 2010.

Weitzman told the Times, “I had an album, an American album but of world-famous international stamps, and there was a big hole on the top of the page for the British Guiana.” Looks like that small blank space, has finally been filled.