One of my favorite stamps when I was young stamp stamp dealer was the 5 Franc Napoleon from France. I liked it because it was nicely printed but mostly because it cataloged a lot of money, and it was easy to recognize. And it had a story. Five francs in France in 1860 was a lot of money. Those of you who are fans of Honore de Balzac, the great French novelist who wrote about that time, know how poor most French workers were and what people would do for such a vast sum as 5 Francs. William James, the American/English author wrote of Balzac's forty novel "Human Comedy" that the real hero of the work was the Five Franc Napoleon, which was a large coin in circulation at the time.
The five franc stamp (Scott #37, 2013 catalog value $825) was issued for packages, mainly banks sending stock certificates, notes and cash back and forth in the pre-electronic age. The huge value of the stamps meant that any postal clerk who misplaced one would not only lose his job but probably his freedom as well. So the clerks tore them from the sheets when they got them and pasted them to their desk blotters so they could keep track of them and one wouldn't fall to the floor or go astray. When one was called for, the clerk peeled them from the blotter and put them on the package, invariable leaving the stamp at least thinned. France #37s are usually faulty or repaired and the ones above are no different, although all of these are nice looking. We have four of them, available at $69.95, post paid, to the first four people who email me that they want one.