Inverted Stamps Bring $200,000

Four 30-year-old Iranian stamps bearing an upside-down likeness of the deposed shah sold for $200,000 today, a price a New York stamp dealer said was the result of a recent CIA inverted stamp scandal.

An unnamed dealer paid $50,000 each for the four stamps, the last unsold portion from a sheet of 100. The inverted shah stamps were discovered in Washington early this year and originally were worth about $5,000 each, but their price has skyrocketed since the disclosure of a covert stamp operation within the CIA.