| British
Guiana 1¢ magenta |
 |
| Country of production |
British Guiana (now Guyana) |
| Location of production |
Georgetown |
| Date of production |
1856 |
| Nature of rarity |
Very limited printing |
| Estimated existence |
1 |
| Face value |
1¢ |
| Estimated value |
US$935,000 |
The British Guiana 1¢ magenta is among the rarest of all postage
stamps. It was issued in limited numbers in British Guiana (now Guyana) in
1856, and only one specimen is now known to exist.
It is imperforate, printed in black on magenta paper, and it features a
sailing ship along with the colony's Latin motto "Damus Petimus Que
Vicissim" (We give and expect in return) in the middle. Four thin lines
frame the ship. The stamp's country of issue and value in small black upper
case lettering in turn surround the frame.
Background
The 1¢ magenta was part of a series of three definitive stamps issued in
that year and was intended for use on local newspapers. The other two stamps,
a 4¢ magenta and 4¢ blue, were intended for postage.
The issue came through mischance. An anticipated delivery of stamps never
arrived by ship in 1856, so the local postmaster, E.T.E. Dalton, authorised a
printer, Joseph Baum and William Dallas, who were the publishers of the
Official Gazette newspaper in Georgetown, to print out an emergency issue
of three stamps. Dalton gave some specifications about the design, but the
printer chose to add a ship image of his own design on the stamp series.
Dalton was not pleased with the end result, and as a safeguard against forgery
ordered that all correspondence bearing the stamps be autographed by the post
office clerks. This particular stamp was initialed E.D.W. by the clerk
E.D.Wight.
Description and history
It was discovered in 1873, by 12-year-old Scottish schoolboy Vernon Vaughan
in the Guyanese town of Demerara, amongst his uncle's letters. There was no
record of it in his stamp catalogue, so he sold it some weeks later for a few
shillings to a local dealer, N.R. McKinnon. After that, the price escalated.
It was bought by a succession of collectors before being bought by Philippe la
Rénotière von Ferrary in the 1880s for US$750. His massive stamp collection
was willed to a Berlin museum.
Following Ferrary's death in 1917, the entire collection was taken by
France as war reparations following the end of World War I. Arthur Hind bought
it during the series of fourteen auctions in 1922 for over US$36,000
(reportedly outbidding three kings, including King George V), and it was sold
by his widow for US$40,000 to a Florida engineer. In 1970, a syndicate of
Pennsylvanian investors, headed by Irwin Weinberg, purchased the stamp for
$280,000 and spent much of the decade exhibiting the stamp in a worldwide
tour. John E. du Pont bought it for $935,000 in 1980. Today it is believed to
be locked away in a bank vault, while its owner serves a 30-year
sentence for murder.[1]
Controversies
At one point, it was suggested that the 1¢ stamp was merely a "doctored"
copy of the magenta 4¢ stamp of the 1856 series, a stamp very similar to the
1¢ stamp in appearance. These claims were disproven.
In the 1920s a rumor developed that a second copy of the stamp had been
discovered, and that the then owner of the stamp, Arthur Hind, had quietly
purchased this second copy and destroyed it. The rumor has not been
substantiated.
In 1999, a second 1¢ stamp was claimed to have been discovered in Bremen,
Germany. The stamp was owned by Peter Winter, who is widely known for
producing many forgeries of classic philatelic items[2],
printed as facsimiles on modern paper. Nevertheless, two European experts,
Rolf Roeder and David Feldman, have said Winter's stamp is genuine[3].
The stamp was twice examined and found to be a fake by the Royal Philatelic
Society London. In their opinion, this specimen in fact was an altered 4¢
magenta stamp[4].
Popular culture
The stamp was sought after in the Carl Barks comic The Gilded Man.
The Guyana 1c was used as a plot device in the 1941 movie "The Saint in
Palm Springs". In the movie its value was stated to be $65,000.
References
