$2.6 million for a stamp

GENEVA — A rare Sicilian stamp has been sold for $2.6 million at an auction in Switzerland.

Auctioneers Galerie Dreyfus say the well-preserved misprint from the year 1859 was sold Thursday to an unnamed online bidder in the United States.

A spokesman for the Basel-based auction house, Jean-Paul Bach, declined Friday to identify the seller but said he or she was based in France. The stamp depicting King Ferdinand II is known as the “Error of Color,” because it was mistakenly printed in blue instead of orange. It is now the second most expensive stamp in the world after the Swedish “Treskilling Yellow,” which previously sold for over $3.3 million.