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Post Office Mauritius (03), two pence, unused (III) (1847)
Gallery
- From
- 1847
- To
- 1847
- Functions
- Stamp
- Location
- Blue Penny Museum, Mauritius
- Summary
2d. Unused. The stamp is cut into slightly at two places. It is thinned in the centre of the back, but only over a small area. There is a slight crease, running from the O of TWO to the S of POST, but it is visible only on the back.
Details
Events
- 1847
- Used on a letter to Borchard at Bordeaux.
- 1865
- Found by Madame Borchard. The stamp was acquired by the dealer Madame Desbois.
- 1866
- Madame Desbois sold the stamp to one of Bordeaux’s major stamp collectors, Émile Lalanne.
- 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 III, along with X, 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 III and X, paying partly in cash and partly by the exchange of XX (the Adam ball envelope) and VI.
- 1923
- Arthur Hind bought III and X 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
- Auctioned by H. R. Harmer in London at the Hind sale (Hind died in 1933) and purchased by a European dealer for £1,500.
- 1938
- Auctioned by H. R. Harmer again and purchased by dealer Tom Allen on behalf of a European collector.
- 1951
- Bought by dealer H. Nissen, who later sold it.
- 1964 (?)
- Acquired by Stanley Gibbons Ltd.
- 1965
- Bought by Hiroyuki Kanai.
- 1986
- Consigned with the Kanai Mauritius collection to David Feldman.
- 1988
- Sold to an anonymous buyer.
- 1993
- Auctioned by David Feldman in Zurich and purchased by a private consortium of Mauritian companies for SFr.1,725,000 ($1,150,000).
- 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... ]
- 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... ]
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... ]
Created: 14 March 2006, Last modified: 21 August 2006