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Rare Stamps and Where They Came From


by dottie27a

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     Stamp collecting is my favorite thing to do in Neopia. Many users are steadfast collectors, many add some stamps here and there, while some others only add ones to gain new avatars. Whatever type of stamp collector you are, I am sure you know that there are some stamps that are incredibly, ridiculously rare. Many stamps are worth well over 1 million Neopoints a piece, but some of the rarest stamps are so hard to find you might be at the owner’s mercy! Have you ever wondered where those incredibly rare stamps came from? Well, you have come to the right place! In this article I’m going to let you in on the secret of where the rarest stamps in Neopia came from. I am going to hopefully touch on every album item worth at least 1 million Neopoints that is r100 or above. That means it does not stock in the Neopian Post Office and was given out in an untraditional manner. Are you ready, because here we go!

     Altador Cup

      Let’s start with everybody’s favorite yearly gaming extravaganza, the Altador Cup! The Altador Cup started in Year 8 and has run every year since, making this year the 12th iteration. Starting at the very first Altador Cup, one of the prizes was the Altador Colosseum Stamp for 900 points. The second year gave us the Yooyu Celebration Stamp as a final prize in the prize shop. Poor participants in Altador Cup III were not given the chance to buy a new stamp. Starting with Altador Cup IV and the Altador Cup IV Commemorative Stamp, every cup released a new stamp in the prize shop up to and including Altador Cup XII Commemorative Stamp. The 10th cup was very special as it also included the Altador Cup X Collectible Gold Coin in the prize shop. This coin was mistakenly not made albumable until after the prize shop had closed and cost a significant number of prize points, so this coin is considerably rarer because people did not buy excess. Those are all pretty self-explanatory and you probably knew where those came from already! The one you may not realize is from the Altador Cup is the Mysterious Vibrant Collectable Scarab! This is given out to participants who had previously participated in 11 Altador Cups. Only a handful were given out this year to everyone who had participated in every single Altador Cup to this point, but next year should see some more released!

     Daily Dare

      Speaking of some of our favorite yearly events, the Daily Dare has been a Neopian staple since AAA and Abigail challenged us all starting in Year 9. The Daily Dare, if you have never participated, is a month long gaming challenge where you can challenge either AAA’s higher score or Abigail’s lower score in a certain game each day, and you get prizes for beating them! The first stamp prize did not appear until Year 14. The AAA vs. Abigail Stamp was awarded as a prize on March 23 as a prize for the Team Challenge for beating AAA’s score. You and a friend had to both beat AAA’s score of 3,574 in Sutek’s Tomb. The next DD in Year 15 saw the release of the infamous 3D Camp AAA Stamp. This is considered to be the hardest Daily Dare because it introduced Chadley and 3 levels of scores you had to beat. AAA’s scores on quite a few games were incredibly difficult, and you had to beat all of them within the month to receive the stamp at the end. Very few people were able to beat them all, making this an incredibly rare stamp. In Years 16 and 17 the Daily Dare was on a brief hiatus. In Year 18 the Daily Dare came back and the final prize awarded for beating all of AAA’s scores by the end was the Game Controller Collectable Charm. This year also saw the Preoccupied AAA Stamp released as a Team Prize for the game Faerie Caves II. Year 19’s Daily Dare final prize for beating all of Chadley’s scores (he took over for AAA again) is the aptly named Chadley Stamp. This Daily Dare also saw Fire Breathing Scorchio Stamp and Spyders Stamp released as Team Prizes, but they are still pretty easily found.

     Games Master Challenge:

      The Games Master Challenge was started by AAA in Year 8 and is a weeklong gaming event where each day new challenges are released. Starting in Year 12, the Games Master Challenge Stamp was released for completing the 4th day’s challenge to send 30 Qualifying Scores, but this stamp is still fairly easy to come by. The hard to find GMC stamps were mostly awarded for completing all of the challenges in a year on the day of the challenge’s release. The Brains vs. Brawn Stamp was awarded during the 2011 GMC, Threelegs vs. Techo Master Stamp was awarded during the 2012 GMC, and the Day and Night Collectable Scarab was awarded during the 2013 GMC. Starting in 2015 you only had to finish each challenge by the end of the event, and you were awarded the Taelia vs. Ember Stamp for your hard work! The final prize in 2016 was the Fiery Golden Collectable Scarab. The Mythical Surroundings Stamp was also awarded this year on Day 7 for sending 50 different qualifying scores.

     Very Old Weekly Competitions

      Now we are getting to the good ones! Way, way back starting in Year 4 when stamps were first introduced, a handful of new prizes were given out for certain weekly competitions. Some of the competitions that awarded new stamps as prizes were Better Than You, Lenny Conundrum, and the Mystery Pic competitions. I will tell you about these in chronological order. For the Better Than You competition announced on Sept 6, 2002, being one of the first 500 people to beat Spectre the Jetsam at the original Igloo Garage Sale game earned you the Mystery Island Grarrl Stamp. The Lenny Conundrum announced on Sept 10, 2002 was going to award the Kyruggi Stamp which, to quote the news of that day, “is a never-to-be-given-out-again stamp.” The first 250 people to answer with the correct answer (0011001100000000, or 3) were awarded this stamp. The Mystery Pic competition that same week awarded the Scary Tree Stamp for the newly announced Haunted Woods album. The week after on Sept 17 the Lenny Conundrum prize was the Wock Til You Drop Stamp. The answer was 99 and apparently very difficult to answer, so only a few stamps were released. The new Lenny Conundrum Prize announced on the November 13, 2002 competition was the Commander Garoo Stamp. The question involved damage in the Battledome and the answer was 1,051. Coltzan Stamp was introduced as the prize for the Lenny Conundrum starting January 29, 2003.

      There are two stamps that were given out through these competitions that were a little strange and deserve a little more of an explanation. The Flaming Evil Coconut originally started its existence as the Number 6 Plushie which was originally an exclusive prize from the Lenny Conundrum. In 2004 around when the Evil Coconuts album was announced, those plushies transformed into the rare coconut we know today. In 2011, Neopets hit 1 trillion page views! To celebrate there were special prizes given out through trades and there was a Lenny Conundrum to celebrate. The answer was going to be an amount of Neopoints, with the first 250 people to be within 1 million Neopoints winning the competition. However, the single closest guess was given a special prize. This was the incredibly rare Midnight Jelly World Stamp. That’s right, only one was initially given out!

     Great Stamp Giveaway

      Stamps were first announced in Neopia in the news on Sept 5, 2002. Starting that same month on Sept 21st, the Great Stamp Giveaway began! This was an event where you could visit sponsored sites and were given special stamps as a reward. There were 5 stamps in the Mystery Island album and 9 from the Tyrannia album given away as a part of this event. The Mystery Island stamps include Bottle of Sand Stamp, Island Uni Stamp, Mystery Island Chef Stamp, Tombola Stamp, and Mystery Island Kiko Stamp. Not all of the Tyrannia stamps from this event are rare, as Tyrannian Elephante Stamp and Chomby Stamp are pretty cheap still. The rare stamps include Grarrg Stamp, Tyrannian Kougra Stamp, Tyrannia Stamp, Omelette Stamp, and Tar Pit Stamp. There were two harder to find stamps from this giveaway that were given a r110, and those are Monocerous Stamp and Discovery of Fire Stamp.

     Retired

      Some stamps are hard to find simply because they no longer stock in the Neopian Post Office! On October 28, 2003, the Neopets Team announced that 50 random items were chosen to be retired. This included 4 stamps. Their rarity was changed to r180 to reflect this. Those stamps were Island Acara Stamp (originally r80), Candychan Stamp (originally r79), Golden Mr Irgo Stamp (originally r99), and Ummagine Stamp. The Golden Mr. Irgo Stamp is one of the rarest because it was initially only released a month before it was retired. Because it had such a high rarity, only a very small number were able to stock before it was retired. Similarly, on January 28, 2010 another 15 items were randomly chosen to be retired. This time the Mystery Island Aishas Stamp was retired. It was, however, incredibly common at only r30, so there were quite a lot in circulation at the time and still a lot remaining.

     Currently Available

      There are some really rare stamps that you can still get! However, they are very, very, very rare. The Faerie Caverns Stamp is currently a prize from the Faerie Caverns daily, and the Grave Danger Stamp is currently a prize from the Grave Danger daily! Very original naming, there. Because Faerie Caverns Stamp is rare and part of the Faerieland collection which awards an avatar, it is incredibly expensive to buy. The Grave Danger Stamp is one of many rare prizes and only a handful has ever been awarded. Two other coins currently have r100, meaning that there are at least 2 ways to attain them. Both Emerald Eyrie Coin and Neopian Times Coin are in the prize pool for the Wheel of Extravagance and also could potentially restock in the Coin Shop. The Neopian Times Coin also is a prize awarded to whoever is published in every 50th edition of the Neopian Times.

     Halloween

      Starting in the Halloween 2014 Trick or Treat Goodie Bags, a stamp has been included as a possible prize. In 2014, the Limited Edition Scurvy Island Stamp was a possible prize in the Little Nippers Trick-or-Treat Bag. The Ghostly Evil Coconut was a prize in the Tiki Tours Trick-or-Treat Bag in 2015. Halloween 2016 saw two stamps released, with the Mika Stamp in the Igloo Garage Sale: The Game Trick-or-Treat Bag and the Mumbo Pango Stamp in the Mystery Island Kitchen Trick-or-Treat Bag. Keep an eye out this Halloween, another stamp is sure to be released!

     Miscellaneous

      There are quite a few stamps that were given out through one-of-a-kind events or through other special circumstances that did not quite fit in other categories. The Happy Lutari Stamp was a part of the prize pool for redeeming item codes at the Grundo Warehouse. You received these codes from buying real life Neopets merchandise. Back when cell phone games were still starting out, Neopets had a game called Coco Roller. Downloading the game and winning gave you a code you could redeem for the Golden Coco Stamp. In July of 2011 the Save the Wheels event started! All of the wheels were no longer spinnable and users had to donate Neopoints to get them spinning again. Donating between 750,000-1,000,000 Neopoints would award you a Wheel of Excitement Stamp. The Krawk Island Disappearance Plot in July and August 2011 awarded the Governor Mansion Stamp as a final prize on August 9.

           There we have it! If you made it all the way to the end of this article, you should now be an expert on where all of the rare r100 and above stamps in Neopia initially came from!

           P.S. A little bit of extra information: In my research for this article, I became very curious about the Petpets Stamp. It turns out, there is a huge mystery involving this stamp, because NO ONE knows where it initially came from! Sure, it is listed as being an exclusive prize from the Lenny Conundrum, and even its official description says “You worked out the Lenny conundrum so you deserve this rare stamp!”, but no one knows which Lenny Conundrum it was released in or even a general timeframe. I scoured the news and it was never announced like the other stamps that were Lenny Conundrum exclusive prizes. I know for sure one was released in May 2011 through a Dr_Sloth Auction, but I cannot seem to find any others having been released! It is a very interesting mystery that I would love to get to the bottom of.

     

 
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