A series of digital art NFTs inspired by the world’s first postage stamp, the iconic 1840 Penny Black, has been released.
Created by BlabarLAB through its CryptoPennyBlack project, the CryptoPenny NFTs are hand-made, divided into 12 different types with contrasting and bright colours, for a total of 3224 pieces.
In a recent auction of what may be considered the earliest known Penny Black, auction house Sotheby’s writes: “It is one of the most important inventions in human history, a precursor to global mass communications.”
The CryptoPenny, says BlabarLAB, is a “hybrid of past and present, history, collecting and digital art.”
The creation followed the history of the original Penny Black: in the individual NFT there are letters indicating its relative position in the Plate, divided into 12 columns by 10 rows and the number of the 12 CryptoPenny follows proportionally the number of stamps originally printed, for example: Plate #01A has 240 copies and Plate #11 only eight copies.
The first plate of 240 copies will go on sale at the end of July 2022 on the main NFT marketplaces, OpenSea and Rarible.
The BlabarLAB team says it wants to revolutionise the way NFTs are collected, shifting the focus from the absolute rarity of the individual NFT to relative rarity, to collection, as in the analog stamp collecting system.
Valentina Busi, PM of the BlabarLAB group, says: “This is an inherent concept in collecting, which is a human activity and as such easily transferable from analog to digital, so we think it will gradually emerge in a natural and inescapable way. It’s a project designed to last.”
The profits from Crypto Penny Black sales will be used to create a virtual space in the metaverse, with permanent exhibits, events and, once a year, a competitive exhibition open to all owners of at least four CryptoPenny.