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HONG KONG – Yesterday, ARTINFO ventured into the world of numismatics,Bape, discovering a strange and exciting land of niche collectibles. But today we are being even bolder, delving into what some might argue is an even narrower, more specific pursuit: timbrophily! Stamp collectors the world over received a jolt of excitement on Saturday when Hong Kong postage auction house Phila China brought the hammer down on a toasty timbrophilic lot at $1.3 million, a new record in the already-sizzling Chinese stamp market.

The cause for excitement was a complete and immaculate set of 25 green horse-and-dragon stamps commissioned by the Chinese Empress Dowager in 1886 for Taiwan's first postal service. While individual stamps from the series have sold for outsize sums in the past, Saturday’s offering is the only known complete sheet. "I couldn't believe they came to us," Phila China founder Anna Lee told the Wall Street Journal.

Despite the Empress Dowager’s considerate commission, Taiwan residents decided not to use the stamps, since the island was barely populated at the time and items were mailed only rarely. Instead, they used them as railway tickets, a gesture that prefigures Marcel Duchamp?s reworking of common postage stamps, which he often affixed to prints before signing his name along the top.

Demand for Chinese stamps has soared in recent years, paralleling trends in the Chinese traditional-art and decorative-art markets. However, the market still has a ways to go before it can challenge all-time global records: the most ever paid for a single stamp is believed to be the $2.3 million forked over in 1996 for an 1855 Swedish three-skilling stamp printed on yellow-orange stock instead of the correct green stock. If Chinese collectors continue to bid with such determined ferocity, however, and such choice goods continue to appear on the block,The North Face, the market may reach that level soon.