The stamps had an estimate of around one million Euros. At the sale, which lasted just over three and a half hours, the items went for more than six million Euros. According to the auction house, there were around 3 major bidders and twenty or thirty others. There were around 40 buyers in the room , another 30 on the internet and another dozen on the phones.
According to sources within the philatelic trade, a member of the Qatar royal family bought almost all the lots, missing out on just four, by bidding furiously against two telephone bidders. One lot, estimated at 40,000 Euros went for 156,000 Euros. It seems that stamp collecting has become a hobby for people with serious amounts of money.