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Post Office Mauritius (10), one penny, unused (X) (1847)
Gallery
- From
- 1847
- To
- 1847
- Functions
- Stamp
- Location
- Blue Penny Museum, Mauritius
- Summary
1d. Unused. The stamp is not cut into at any place. There are two thinnings on the back: one is under the mount; the other is a hardly visible spot.
Details
Events
- 1847
- Used on a letter to Borchard at Bordeaux.
- 1869
- Found by Madame Borchard (in 1869 or earlier). The stamp was acquired by the dealer Madame Desbois.
- 1870
- Émile Lalanne, one of Bordeaux’s major stamp collectors, obtained the stamp from Madame Desbois for services rendered in helping her to dispose of a lot of stamps.
- 1893
- Piet Lataudrie bought Lalanne’s collection through the agency of Marcel Pouget for Fr.60,000 (£2,400) in July. A month later the British firm of Stanley Gibbons Ltd bought X, along with III, for £680, advertising their purchase as the highest price ever paid for two stamps. They were then bought together by collector William Avery.
- 1909
- Dealer W. H. Peckitt bought Avery’s collection (Avery died in 1908) for £24,500. Henry Duveen bought both X and III, paying partly in cash and partly by the exchange of XX (the Adam ball envelope) and VI.
- 1923
- Arthur Hind bought bought X and III through the agency of C. J. Phillips for about $30,000. (Duveen’s collection came back on to the market in 1922, three years after his death in 1919.)
- 1934
- Bought by A. E. de Silva of Colombo.
- 1957
- Sold on behalf of the Young Men’s Buddhist Association, to which it had been presented by de Silva. Bought jointly by H. Nissen and W. E. Lea.
- date (?)
- Peter Holcombe, while a director of J. A. L. Franks Ltd, bought the stamp for £7,000 and sold it to a collector in New York for £8,250.
- 1962
- The collector in New York fell on hard times after losing millions on the Stock Exchange on the day known as ‘Black Friday’ and the stamp was taken in part payment of a debt.
- 1963
- Auctioned by Harmer, Rooke & Co. Ltd and bought by Hiroyuki Kanai for £8,500.
- 1986
- Consigned with the Kanai Mauritius collection to David Feldman.
- 1988
- Sold to an anonymous buyer for $850,000.
- 1993
- Auctioned by David Feldman in Zurich and purchased by a private consortium of Mauritian companies for SFr.1,610,000 ($1,073,340).
- 2001
- Blue Penny Museum opened in Port Louis, Mauritius, purpose-built for the permanent public display of ‘Post Office’ stamps III and X.
Prepared by: Helen Morgan
Related Subjects
Custodians
Dealers
Original Recipient
Owner
Related Cultural Artefacts
Related Places
Bibliography
Books
- Williams, L. N., Encyclopaedia of Rare and Famous Stamps, vol. 1 of 2, David Feldman, Geneva, 1993. [ Details... ]
- Williams, L. N., Encyclopaedia of Rare and Famous Stamps, vol. 2 of 2, David Feldman, Geneva, 1997. [ Details... ]
Journal Articles
- 'The Exhibition of the South African Colonies', London Philatelist, vol. 11, no. 132, December 1902, pp. 280-81. [ Details... ]
- 'Mauritius Post Office', Deutsche Briefmarken Zeitung, vol. 15, no. 2, 29 February 1904, pp. 21-25. [ Details... ]
- 'The International Philatelic Exhibition, London, 1906', Stanley Gibbons Monthly Journal, vol. 16, no. 191, 1906, pp. 228-33. [ Details... ]
- 'Editorial - The Exhibition', Stanley Gibbons Monthly Journal, vol. 16, no. 191, 31 May 1906, pp. 217-18. [ Details... ]
- Moens, Jean-Baptiste, 'Encore les Post-Office de Maurice', Le Timbre-Poste, no. 438, June 1899, pp. 87-93. [ Details... ]
- Phillips, Charles J., 'Reminiscences of the Veterans', Stamp Collecting, vol. 34, no. 9, 31 May 1930. [ Details... ]
- Stocken, Nevile Lacy, 'The "Hind" Sales', Stamp Collecting, vol. 42, no. 13, 23 June 1934, pp. 306-07. [ Details... ]
Newspaper Articles
- 'Rare Mauritius Stamps: Big Prices at Sale of Hind Collection', The Times, 13 June 1934, p. 13. [ Details... ]
See also
- 'The London Philatelic Exhibition - Mauritius', London Philatelist, vol. 6, no. 67, July 1897, p. 188. [ Details... ]
- '"Post Office" Mauritius Fetches £4500', The Stamp Lover, vol. 49, no. 10-11, March-April 1957, p. 143. [ Details... ]
- '"Post Office" Mauritius to be Sold', The Stamp Lover, vol. 49, no. 8-9, January-February 1957, p. 110. [ Details... ]
Created: 14 March 2006, Last modified: 21 August 2006