Sending traditional mail is so cheap, with the first ever adhesive stamp used costing the sender only a penny or one cent. But the envelope bearing the so-called Black Penny stamp sent to William Blenkinsop Jr., the 35-year-old manager of a Victorian iron works in the northern England town of Bedlington, possesses historical value that now makes the relic so dear, CNN reports.

Dated 2 May 1840, the mail is expected to fetch $1.5 million to $2.5 million when it is auctioned off this month, according to Sotheby’s New York.

According to CNN, even more expensive than the Black Penny were some packages delivered by online marketplace eBay to a couple who ran a newsletter that was sometimes critical of the company.

A Massachusetts US attorney’s office statement on 11 January says eBay has agreed to settle the lawsuit of the “aggrieved” recipients for $3 million.

Ina and David Steiner sued eBay, which led to charges of stalking, witness tampering, and obstruction of justice against the company. The suit arose from disturbing packages sent by its employees to the Steiners in 2019.

“The company’s employees and contractors involved in this campaign put the victims through pure hell, in a petrifying campaign aimed at silencing their reporting and protecting the eBay brand,” the state’s acting US attorney, Joshua Levy, said, according to CNN.

The disturbing packages included, according to a previous United States Department of Justice statement, “a box of live cockroaches,” “a book on surviving the loss of a spouse, and pornography,” a bloody pig mask, a fetal pig, and a funeral wreath.

All the involved employees had been fired, with one charged, tried, convicted, and sentenced to 57 months in prison in September 2022, while six others are facing felony convictions, CNN reports.