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Text below is from the Sothebys Catalogue - with pars added, so it is more readable!

Very well written detailed history.

The IMAGE above was photoshopped by member here Allnswood - the best sotheby's could do to earn their MANY million commisioon was a small pink fuzzy rectangle shown underneath our artworked image!


As with the previous locally produced issues of 1850, Postmaster Dalton had each stamp initialed by either himself or one of his clerks for extra security. The unique One-Cent was initialed by E(dmund) D(alzell) W(ight).

Like Government Secretary A. G. Young, Wight had little tolerance for the philatelic celebrity achieved by British Guiana’s early stamps. In 1889, Edward Denny Bacon, one of the first philatelists to write about the stamps of the colony, reported that E. C. Luard had told him that “Mr. Wight is still alive and living in the colony but he is in his dotage and either cannot or will not remember anything about these old stamps except that he initialed them. He has been so pestered on the subject that the mention of old stamps to him is like a red rag to a bull.”

The whereabouts of the One-Cent Magenta for the last 141 years can be known positively. But the first seventeen years of its existence are shrouded in impenetrable obscurity. The stamp was purchased on or before 4 April 1856, the date it was postmarked, and affixed to an envelope or newspaper wrapper, most likely addressed to a Mr. Andrew Hunter.

And sometime in 1873, the stamp was discovered - or recovered - by a nephew of Hunter, a budding stamp collector. For the years between those events, the stamp resided unrecognized and unappreciated on its cover in the tropical heat and humidity of British Guiana.

Part 4: The Story of the World’s Most Famous Stamp from 1873 to 1891

1873–1878: From Georgetown to Paris. In 1873 Louis Vernon Vaughan, a twelve-year-old schoolboy of Welsh Scottish descent whose family had immigrated to British Guiana, came upon the correspondence of his uncle Andrew Hunter while clearing out his relative’s home.

Hunter had recently left the colony after forty-two years and moved to Barbados, where he died on 12 October the following year. Vaughan had recently caught the philately bug, and he began soaking the stamps from their covers and placing them into his collection.

The correspondence dated from the earliest issues of the colony, and even though the quality and appearance of the early issues paled in comparison to the new brightly colored and sharply engraved stamps now appearing throughout the world, Vaughan was happy to add them to his album.

He could not have known that the One-Cent was unique, but he likely did recognize it as being from the scarce emergency issue of 1856—and he certainly knew that he did not have an example. It is worth noting that The Official Gazette of British Guiana, which usually published on Wednesday and Saturday only, issued a one-page “Extraordinary” number on Friday, 4 April—the date the One-Cent was cancelled.

This special issue, with a blank verso, could very easily have been folded, sealed, addressed, and stamped with the proper One-Cent postage. And the fact that the “Extraordinary” issue contained two proclamations by Philip Edmund Wodehouse, the Governor and Commander-in-Chief of British Guiana, could help explain why Andrew Hunter retained it among his papers.

Shortly afterwards, Vaughan received a packet of unused foreign stamps on approval from Albert Smith and Company. Smith, located in Bath, England, had been in business since the 1860s and was one of the world’s first stamp dealers.

The firm’s advertisements in all the major magazines for boys throughout the English-speaking world created a lucrative business during the first decades of the hobby. Smith was also the publisher of The Stamp-Collector’s Magazine, 1863–1874, one of the best regarded of the early periodicals devoted to stamps.

In the 1 July 1865 issue of the magazine Mr. (later Judge) Frederick Adolphus Philbrick, writing under the pseudonym Damus Petimusque Vicissim, had attempted to clarify the issues of the colony of British Guiana.

He listed the 1850 4-cent, 8-cent, and 12-cent cottonreels and mentioned the possible existence of a 2-cent value on pink paper, although he thought it unlikely (Philbrick’s “First Issue”). He described the 1-cent and 4-cent from 1852 as from 1850 and 1851, respectively (“Second Issue”), but the 1853 issue was catalogued correctly (“Fourth Issue”).

As his “Third Issue” Philbrick described and illustrated what is now recognized as the 1856 issue: oblong rectangles printed in black on surface-colored paper. He described two 4-cent values only, one on deep magenta, the other on deep azure blue.

These stamps are engraved on wood, and printed in the colony; a sheet or so only was printed on blue, to replace the old blue 4 c. upright rectangle, but the supply of blue paper failing, they were also printed on pink paper, the shape sufficiently guarding against confusion with the former issue.

The circulation of these stamps was of the most limited duration, both kinds are of the highest degree of rarity; few indeed are the happy possessors of either, while those who have the blue may be reckoned twice over on the fingers of one hand, and may be congratulated on having probably the very rarest stamp known to collectors.

Two English collections, it is believed, and two only, boast of this matchless blue; while on the continent a specimen is not known to exist. The pink is also of but one less degree of rarity, scarcely known even among the élite of collections. All stamps of this issue, which the writer has ever seen, bear an initialed signature, in addition to the usual postmark.

In their perfect state these stamps have a margin of considerable width. F. A. Philbrick’s pioneering article on the stamps of British Guiana, from The Stamp-Collector’s Magazine, vol. 3, 1865. This is almost certainly the reference that the young Vernon Vaughan had when perusing his find.

His new-found stamps contained cottonreels and quite likely at least two of Philbrick’s “Third Issue” stamps. (In 1906 L. V. Vaughan displayed his collection for the British Guiana Philatelic Society at Georgetown; it still contained a 12-cent cottonreel and an 1856 4-cent Black on Blue.)

The fact that one of his 1856 oblongs was a One-Cent and not listed should have been exciting, but as it was a poor copy with cut corners he decided to sell it in order to buy some of the newer and more attractive issues that he had been sent on approval from Mr. Smith of Bath.



He might have expected to eventually turn up a better example among his uncle’s papers. Vaughan removed the stamp from his album and offered it to a local collector, Neil Ross McKinnon of Berbice.





McKinnon, a young Scots gentleman in his early twenties, at first declined. He thought it a bad specimen and objected to it being cut octagonally rather than square.

When he understood that Vaughan only wished to sell in order to buy other stamps, McKinnon relented. After Vaughan accepted his offer of six shillings ($1.44), McKinnon is supposed to have given him this observation with the money, “Now look here, my lad, I am taking a great risk in paying so much for this stamp and I hope you will appreciate my generosity.”

McKinnon kept the One-Cent in his collection for about five years, during which period there was an explosion of interest in British Guiana from the fledgling stamp-collecting world.

Philatelists were particularly intrigued by the circular cottonreels of 1850, and the few examples that had made their way into the English and European trade had sold for large sums.

From the perspective of 1921, A. D. Ferguson, Fellow of the Royal Philatelic Society, London, described the early “stamp rush” during those years in The British Guiana Philatelic Journal: Evidently these comparatively large sums obtained, together with the advertisements of English dealers in local newspapers, acted as an incentive to searchers for stamps.

The result was that many searches were made from 1876 on, among private letters, in banks, merchants’ offices, Government offices, etc., as opportunity offered, with the result that hundreds of the early issues were found. In some cases these searches were made without permission by clerks, office-boys, etc., and were promptly sold on the spot.

L. Vernon Vaughan later recalled selling cottonreels as a teenager for a pound ($5.00) each, regardless of denomination. The most successful buyers turned out to be local collectors, many of whom ran their own standing advertisements offering cash for the early issues.

These men, all still in their twenties, included, in addition to Neil Ross McKinnon in New Amsterdam, Edward Chauncy Luard, Charles Guy Austin Wyatt, and Mewburn Garnett in Georgetown. Of these, only Luard would go on to become a prominent philatelist. These young men became, in turn, the source of supply for the English dealers who started receiving large troves of these issues during 1876 and 1877.

One consignment sent to Stanley Gibbons in London numbered well over three hundred specimens. Oddly, it seems that the Demerara collectors were not aware of the activities of McKinnon in Berbice. E. C. Luard, writing in 1882, appeared to have no knowledge of the series of events that had played out during 1877 and 1878.

Up to 1876 there were supposedly two complete collections of British Guiana. One belonged to the famous dealer J. B. Moens of Belgium, the second to the equally celebrated Baron Arthur de Rothschild. These collections were valued at one hundred and fifty pounds each at the time.

Now it is known that both were short by two issues: the fabled 1850 2-cent cottonreel on rose-colored paper alluded to by Philbrick and the 1856 One-Cent Black on Magenta, the existence of which was not even yet a rumor. Today there are four known single used copies of the former and just one of the latter.

In 1876, Neil Ross McKinnon owned all five. Edward Bacon, writing in The London Philatelist in February 1900, describes the first appearance of the 2-cent cottonreel. According to Bacon, a Mr. Kirton sold the stamp to the twenty-six-year-old Liverpool dealer Thomas Ridpath in late 1877. A. D. Ferguson, writing years later, suggested that the seller must have been Neil McKinnon since he was the seller of the only other known single copies of this rarity.





But Bacon’s version of events is almost certainly accurate. He received his information directly from Ridpath, albeit twenty years after the transaction. And Ridpath purchased the entire McKinnon collection some thirteen months after acquiring the 2-cent and would presumably have remembered his name when speaking to Bacon.

McKinnon was the original owner of this stamp but not Ridpath’s vendor. He must have exchanged or sold the stamp to Mr. Kirton, who was probably another local enthusiast. There was a Kirton plantation in British Guiana and a fairly prominent Kirton family that had interests in Barbados and throughout the West Indies.

But regardless of how Ridpath acquired the stamp, he quickly sold it on to the twenty-seven-year-old Philipp La Rénotière von Ferrary of Paris. For a short period between late 1877 and March 1878 this was the only known copy and the rarest stamp of British Guiana. This particular example, one of the two known single examples in private hands, is presently part of the John E. du Pont Collection.

McKinnon sold two further copies of the 2-cent on rose paper in March and July of 1878, both to Alfred Smith of Bath, whose appealing offerings had enticed young Vernon Vaughan to part with his One-Cent Magenta. Smith paid something in the range of fifteen pounds each for the cottonreels.

Very little information has survived regarding private-transaction prices from that period, but it is recorded that Judge Philbrick purchased the first of these specimens from Smith in March for twenty pounds. By late summer 1878, whether encouraged by his recent windfall or sensing the peak of the market, Neil McKinnon decided to sell his entire collection.

With the knowledge that his duplicate copies of the 2-cent cottonreel had fetched very good money, his attention probably turned to the strange little red octagonal One-Cent he had purchased five years earlier. The stamp was not pretty, but neither were the earlier circular issues and they were selling well.

The problem was that there was no mention in any publication anywhere of any value of this issue apart from the 4-cent. What McKinnon needed was an expert opinion. Edward Loines Pemberton was the leading philatelic expert of the day, certainly at least in the English-speaking world.

He had published the great Stamp Collectors Handbook (1874), his monthly Philatelic Journal was widely circulated and uniformly praised, and his pioneering works on forgeries, Album Weeds, remains a required reference to this day.

McKinnon dispatched his entire collection to his old friend Robert Wylie Hill in Glasgow. Wylie Hill was the grandson of the successful hair and feather merchant Robert Wylie, and beginning about 1875, he spent several years in South America collecting birds, sometimes traveling far up the Amazon River to obtain exotic specimens.

It was during this time that Hill would have met McKinnon; two educated young Scotsmen of the same age and living in the same colony could hardly have failed to know each other. McKinnon’s instructions to Hill were simple. The collection was to be sent to Edward Pemberton for his examination, and if he so chose he would then have first refusal at a price of one hundred and ten pounds. (Perhaps the ten pounds represented a commission to Hill.)

Neil Ross McKinnon Pemberton examined the collection sometime in late September 1878 and pronounced the One-Cent Magenta to be absolutely genuine. For some reason, possibly illness, he did not purchase the collection immediately. He may well have sent the stamps back to Wylie Hill in Scotland with a counteroffer.

But what Pemberton did not realize was that McKinnon had stipulated that if he turned down the collection, Hill was to then send letters offering the collection to the major dealers in the country. These would have almost certainly included Stanley Gibbons in London, Alfred Smith of Bath, and Thomas Ridpath of Liverpool. Ridpath acted first.

He later wrote to Bacon that he received Hill’s letter at 4:45 p.m. on 2 October 1878, “and by 8 p.m. I was on my way to Glasgow. I saw Mr. Hill before 9 a.m. next morning, concluded the business and was back in Liverpool all within twenty-four hours.” Ridpath paid £120, and legend has it that Pemberton’s check for £110 arrived shortly afterwards.

In order to come up with the purchase price so quickly, Ridpath may have sought a loan from his friend and sometime backer James Botteley, a coal merchant from Birmingham and an avid stamp collector. Botteley’s fee in such arrangements was not monetary, but rather the right of first choice from the new acquisition.

Thomas Ridpath Both reproduced from a souvernir of the Dailey Chronicle Exhbition, 1940. Courtesy of Peter Lazar. Philatelic Collector Inc.


It is not known if Botteley passed on the One-Cent because of its appearance or if, as L. N. Williams maintained, because “he was asked by Ridpath, as a special favour, not to take the 1 cent stamp as the dealer could obtain a far greater price from Paris than he would dream of asking Botteley.”

Within days Ridpath visited Ferrary in Paris, and sold him the One-Cent Black on Magenta, which both parties recognized as a rarity, although neither could have known it was unique. The price is not known, but it is unlikely to have been more than £40. At the same time, Ridpath exchanged the 2-cent cottenreel for the example he had supplied the previous year as he believed it a slightly superior copy.

Both stamps would remain in the Ferrary collection for over forty years. (Five years later, the 2-cent cottonreel Ferrary traded back to Ridpath would end up in the collection of James Botteley at a cost of thirty pounds.)

1878–1891: Establishing Authenticity

Almost as soon as the One-Cent Black on Magenta had arrived in Britain, it disappeared into the fabled cabinets belonging to Philipp von Ferrary at 57 rue de Varenne in Paris. During its brief stay in late 1878 it had been seen by a total of four people: Robert Wylie Hill, Thomas Ridpath, James Botteley, and Edward Pemberton. Following Pemberton’s death on 12 December 1878 at the age of 34, only three witnesses remained.

Fortunately, Pemberton left a written record of his impression of the stamp in a letter sent the previous month to his friend Frederick Philbrick. He had had the opportunity to examine the McKinnon collection, Pemberton related, and it included a “ONE cent, red, 1856!!! as genuine as anything ever was.”

In British Guiana Neil McKinnon was pursuing his law career and apparently never returned to philately. He may have spoken to Vernon Vaughan at some point about the sale of his stamps to Ridpath because Vaughan’s later recollection of the 1856 One-Cent accounting for twenty-five pounds of the total sum paid for the McKinnon collection is probably the most accurate of the many and varied estimates.

The continuing lack of information regarding the stamp was underlined in 1882 when Edward Luard wrote “Valuable Curiosities from the British Guiana Post Office.” The article mentioned the 2-cent “Pink” cottonreel, to which Luard assigned a value of thirty pounds, while noting a decline in the price of the other values in 1879 due to the many discoveries during the previous three years.

On the subject of the 1856 issue he makes no reference at all to the One-Cent. He does describe a 4-cent yellow, but this is obviously a confusion with the earlier cottonreel of the same color and denomination.

Back in England, a largely accurate description of the One-Cent did appear in The Philatelic Record for January 1882: The old issues of this colony [British Guiana] form a mine from which unexpected treasures are yet to be unearthed.

Comparatively few of our readers have ever heard of the existence of a One cent, brown of the same design, and probably issued at the same time, as the large, oblong, magenta and blue Four cents stamps of 1856. And yet we have excellent reasons for chronicling the existence of this stamp, a specimen of which is, we understand, in the collection of M. de. Ferrari. We shall be glad if this gentlemen will give some account of this rarity for the benefit of the many collectors who are as enthusiastic, but in many respects less highly favoured than he is.

Seven years later, on 3 May 1889, a paper was read before the Philatelic Society, London. The title was “Some New Facts connected with the History of the Postage Stamps of Brh Guiana.” The author was a twenty-eight-year-old philatelist named Edward Denny Bacon.

In his May paper, Bacon does not cite the One-Cent, and there is only a brief synopsis of the 1856 issue as a whole. But it is almost impossible to overstate the importance of the ensuing contributions of this one man to the story of the One-Cent Black on Magenta.

By gathering all the available information he was able, for the first time, to provide a concise history of the stamps of the colony. In many ways he completed the last work of E. L. Pemberton, whose untimely death ten years previously had left so much information unrecorded.





The “New Facts” paper is notable because, for the first time, it correctly listed all the issues prior to 1856, complete with Post Office records, dates of issue, and the printers of the various issues.

It also corrected several errors in F. A. Philbrick’s 1865 article in The Stamp-Collector’s Magazine. Philbrick, at this point president of the Philatelic Society, issued a response to Bacon, published in The Philatelic Record for June 1889, which included additional commentary about the One-Cent: Mr. Pemberton, to whom this stamp was originally offered by Mr. Wyatt, accidentally omitted to close with the offer till too late, but believed firmly in it. He wrote me in November 1878, he was to have given £110 for this, and four circulars of 1850 - five stamps in all. He says the lot included a “ONE cent, red, 1856!!! as genuine as anything ever was.”

Later on, in the same letter, he adds, “I can learn nothing of that 4c, ’56, yellow. This one cent, ’56, red, is queer; no doubt went with the 4c, blue - nothing unlikely in that; it was a dreadfully poor copy.” Having examined it myself, I regret I must agree with him that the copy is very poor. The shade of colour is neither full nor bright; the appearance is as if it had been washed out; while the value is not clearly legible. But the people at the Royal Gazette office left this value standing in the list, and they ought to know. Mr. Pemberton’s remark that a 1 cent value is not unlikely to have been called for is plausible, and I think we must agree that, so far as our present knowledge goes, there is no impossibility in such a stamp having been created. The absence of another copy, too, notwithstanding the later “finds,” is in its favour; but I do not feel in a position, until Gazette notices are traced out, or other official documents supplied, to pronounce definitely on the subject. If admitted to the list, it should be catalogued under, “All reserve.”

The reference to the 4-cent yellow pertained to the stamp mentioned previously by Edward Luard in 1882 (and now known to be a chimera). “Mr. Wyatt” is a reference to Charles Wyatt, who sent a large find of the 1850 cottonreels to Stanley Gibbons in 1877; here Philbrick seems to confuse him with Wylie Hill.

The amount of £110 is believed to be correct, although it is likely, but not certain, that this price was for the entire McKinnon collection and not just for the One-Cent and four circulars. As early as 1881 Philbrick claimed that he had viewed the One-Cent “before it went overseas” and believed it to be an altered 4-cent; this article indicates that, eight years later, he remained unconvinced that the One-Cent was genuine.





The period from 1889 to 1891 saw two events critical to the standing of the One-Cent. Edward Bacon began expanding his paper on the stamps of British Guiana for the Philatelic Society’s monograph "The Postage Stamps, Envelopes, Wrappers, Post Cards, and Telegraph Stamps of the British Colonies in the West Indies together with British Honduras and the Colonies in South America."

He was also invited to view the fabulous stamp collection of Philipp von Ferrary. Bacon’s verdict on the stamp was unambiguous: “While in Paris, I had a long-wished-for opportunity of examining the only known copy of the one cent of this issue, of which Herr P. von Ferrary is the fortunate possessor. Doubts have more than once been expressed about the ‘face’ value of this stamp, but after a most careful inspection I have no hesitation whatever in pronouncing it a thoroughly genuine one cent specimen. The copy is a poor one, dark magenta in colour, but somewhat rubbed. It is initialed E. D. W., and dated April 1st, the year not being distinct enough to read.”

Bacon’s comment regarding the doubts expressed about the “face” value of the stamp seems to be aimed directly at Philbrick. This was the genesis of a controversy that would resurface periodically over the next eighty years. On one point, Pemberton, Bacon, and Philbrick were agreed: the One-Cent was a poor specimen.

This was a fact conceded by every owner since Vaughan. Pemberton described it as “red” and “queer”; Bacon as “dark magenta” and “rubbed”: both terms which approximate the current condition of the stamp. Philbrick noted that “the shade of colour is neither full nor bright” and that “the value is not clearly legible.”

In all likelihood, however, Philbrick probably never actually saw the One-Cent and later confused it in his memory with a 4-cent black on magenta of the same issue. This supposition is supported by circumstantial evidence.

First, Philbrick was not made aware of the possible existence of the stamp, via Pemberton’s letter, until November 1878, weeks after Ridpath had sold the stamp to Ferrary in Paris. Second, just prior to Philbrick’s claim that he examined the stamp “before it went overseas,” a hoard of between eighty and one hundred copies of the 1856 4-cent magenta had appeared.

The publication of "The Stamps of the West Indies" in 1891 was met with universal acclaim. The opening editorial of the October issue of The Philatelic Record claimed that “However noteworthy and important the previously-issued productions of the Society have been, we are doubtless correct in stating that in the magnitude of the work undertaken, the importance of the subject, and the successful outcome of their labours, the Stamps of the West Indies transcends all its predecessors.”

In particular, the editorial praised the wealth of new information and facsimile reproductions regarding “that Philatelic Parnassus—a complete set of the early issues of Guiana”: “The very scarcest stamps of the mainland colony—British Guiana—are and must remain ‘a dream’ to the vast majority of collectors; … the announcement of the undoubted existence of the oblong 1 c. magenta of the 1856 issue will come as a surprise to thousands of collectors who have, of course, not been fortunate enough to inspect this famous stamp, the possession of which Herr von Ferrary need well be proud.”

And in a review proper of the book later in the same issue, the One-Cent was first formally recognized, thirty-five years after it was printed, as unique: “This is without doubt, in our opinion, the rarest stamp in the world, in its solitary grandeur.”

In a coda to the now-settled controversy, on 23 October 1891 Edward Bacon proposed Philipp von Ferrary for membership in the Philatelic Society, and in June 1892 Frederick Philbrick QC resigned as President.

Part 5: The Story of the World’s Most Famous Stamp from 1892 to 1922





Philipp La Rénotière von Ferrary was an Austrian of noble birth living in France.

He devoted his life to philately and amassed the greatest and most comprehensive collection of stamps ever assembled. He had a particular fondness for legendary rarities and counted among his acquisitions seven 1847 “Post Office” Mauritius stamps, an unused 1851 two-cent Hawaiian Missionary, and the 1855 Swedish Treskilling yellow error.

Ferrary’s acquisition of the One-Cent Black on Magenta greatly enhanced the reputation and recognisability of the stamp, but in the three decades following the publication of Bacon’s work on the stamps of British Guiana little new was published on it.

By 1893 the stamp - now accurately described and, in L. N. Williams’s phrase, “almost a legend” - began appearing in catalogues. C. H. Mekeels listed the stamp at $500 used and, amusingly, $750 unused. In the same publication the 2-cent cottonreel on rose paper was valued at $1,010.

In 1899 Harmsworth’s Monthly Pictorial Magazine printed an article, “Postage Stamps Worth Fortunes,” that included an interview with Charles J. Phillips, owner of Stanley Gibbons, Ltd., of London. This article speciously described the One-Cent as an “error,” an inaccuracy that would periodically be revived:

"Most people imagine the Mauritius to be the rarest and most valuable of stamps. In this they are wrong. Mr. Phillips credits the 1856 British Guiana, black on magenta, with this honour. By an error, which was quickly rectified, certain of these stamps were lettered “one” instead of “four.” If you can obtain a copy in which this error is apparent it will readily bring £1,000 ($5,000). At present only one copy is known to be in existence and that is in Paris. It holds an honoured place in the magnificent collection belonging to Mons. Ferrary, son of the late Duchess Galliera."

February 1900 would see the publication of Bacon’s article on the discovery of the 2-cent cottonreels of 1851 in The London Philatelist. This is perhaps the last great work on the early years of the One-Cent as it includes the story of the original sale of the McKinnon collection as recounted by Thomas Ridpath himself.

Bacon spoke to him just in time: Ridpath died on 28 October, at age forty-nine. Save for Andrew Hunter, who originally received the stamp in the mail, he would be the first owner of the stamp to die. In "Stamp Collecting as a Pastime" by Edward Nankivell, published by Stanley Gibbons in 1902, a short well-researched biography of the stamp appeared.

Nankivell was unequivocal about the status of the One-Cent: “This stamp may safely be placed at the head of great rarities. Of its value it is impossible to form any opinion. If a dealer had the disposal of the copy in question, he would probably want between £1,000 and £2,000 for it, with a decided preference for the larger sum.”

The reclusive Ferrary never exhibited his stamps and it was long believed the stamp never left his rooms at the Hôtel Matignon; however, a story purportedly from 1905 and published in the "San Francisco Sunday Call" in 1906 disagrees:

Ferrary was inspecting an art collection on one occasion when a large and handsome canvas that occupied a great portion of wall space was pointed out to him as the most valuable picture in the salon. “It is worth all of £1,800,” said his Informant. “Then it is not the most valuable picture here,” replied Ferrary, and he produced from the depths of a pocket, a card case, inside was a tiny piece of paper, which he carefully held up for his friend. “This,” he continued, “is far more costly than your beautiful painting.” “And pray, what is its value?” exclaimed his incredulous auditor. “I prize it so highly,” answered Ferrary, “that if you were this instant to offer me £3000 for it, I would not take it.”

And the bit of paper that the speaker delicately poised on his finger was merely a postage stamp, not one of the elaborately engraved and beautifully colored contrivances with which the patrons of the mails are familiar, but a crude affair whose typographical appearance would not be endorsed by the humblest printer in all Christendom. The stamp that Ferrary valued so highly is the most precious of all the gems in the realm of philately. It is a British Guiana 1 cent Issue of 1856, and only one genuine specimen of this stamp is known to exist."

During the One-Cent’s golden jubilee year of 1906 the British Guiana Philatelic Society held a stamp exhibition in Georgetown. One display of the stamps of the colony in the Class II general collections category contained a 12-cent cottonreel and an 1856 4-cent black on magenta. This was deemed “without a doubt the finest mounted general collection in the Exhibition,” but, it was reported, “the collection arrived after the judging had been finished, and thus failed to secure a medal, which it richly deserved.”

The exhibitor was a Mr. L. V. Vaughan. Two years later, the London Philatelist published an article by the President of the British Guiana Philatelic Society, Mr. Arthur D. Ferguson. The piece recounted the story of the find of the One-Cent and subsequent sale to Neil McKinnon as told to the author by Vaughan.

This appears to be the first published account given by the finder and is the basis of all subsequent narratives of the discovery of the stamp.





And yet, at the time, the philatelic world might have been possessed of more facts about Vernon Vaughan than about the enigmatic Philipp von Ferrary. As a boy, Ferrary had been encouraged to collect by his mother, supposedly to provide a diversion from his obsession with the Franco-Austrian War.

His family was an ancient and rich family of Genoa bankers. His father was made a Duke by Pope Gregory XVI, and a Prince de Lucedio by King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy. Ferrary’s parents were both fantastically wealthy, but he refused to accept either his father’s inheritance or his title, Duke of Galliera. When his mother left Paris, she gave the magnificent Hôtel Matignon to be used as the Austro-Hungarian Embassy, with the proviso that her son could keep an extensive apartment there for the remainder of his life. (The Hôtel Matignon is now the official residence of the Prime Minister of France.)

On 2 February 1913, Ferrary’s stamp curator, Pierre Marie Mahé, died. Mahé had been in the stamp business since the earliest days of the hobby and had been one of the first to open a shop in Paris in the 1860s. It is said that he charged a small commission on purchases made on behalf of Ferrary as a dowry for his daughter, and in the course of many years, this dowry must have reached a very considerable total.

Mahé was eighty years of age when he died. A little over two weeks later, 17 February, the world lost E. Stanley Gibbons, founder of the eponymous, and still very active, stamp business. But Ferrary was soon to face more serious changes than those.

When the Great War broke out in July 1914, Ferrary was in Holland. As an Austrian citizen he was technically an enemy of France and so, unable to return to France, he took up residence in Lausanne, Switzerland. In January 1915 he rewrote his will, leaving his entire collection to the Berlin Postal Museum.

Records show he may well have been able to return to Paris during 1916, and if this is true, it would have marked the last time he saw his collection. Philipp de la Rénotière von Ferrary died at age 67 on 20 May 1917 in Switzerland. He suffered a fatal heart attack in a taxicab, reportedly returning from a visit with a local stamp dealer.

He had been in ill health for some time. Ferrary’s will was made public late in 1917. In it he stated his desire that - “The philatelic legacy, to which I have dedicated my whole life with the utmost commitment, I leave with pride and joy to my German fatherland.”

But with Ferrary’s stamps secure in Paris, France had no intention of releasing the collection. Initially the French sequestered the collection, demanding five million francs in inheritance tax, plus a further million in related charges from the cash-strapped Berlin Postal Museum.

They then seized the collection as enemy property under provisions of the Treaty of Versailles that came into effect in January 1920. The French government then announced that the collection would be sold at auction, with the proceeds from the sale being deducted from the war reparations owed by Germany to France.

At some point following this announcement two bids were rumored to have been received for the collection as a whole. One from an unknown American collector, possibly Arthur Hind or Alfred Lichtenstein, for approximately 11.5 million francs, and one from Stanley Gibbons, Ltd., for 14 million. Both were declined.

After nearly forty years, the One-Cent Black on Magenta was about to leave the Ferrary collection. The stamp was to be offered as lot 295 at the third sale on 6 April 1922 and was expected to sell for an unprecedented sum for a single used stamp.





Fourteen auctions, under the supervision of Monsieur Gerard Gilbert and spanning from 23 June 1921 to 26 November 1925 were needed to disperse the confiscated stamps from the estate of Philipp von Ferrary. The greatest stamp collection the world has ever known was divided up into over 8,000 lots, some of which contained more than 10,000 stamps.

Descriptions were meager, no guarantees as to authenticity or condition were offered, viewing was limited, and complaints were ignored. Still, nearly 200,000 stamps went under the hammer at the famous Hôtel Drouot, including almost every rarity then known, achieving a total of over 27 million French francs.

The 1856 One-Cent Black on Magenta appeared as lot 295 in the second session of the third sale on the afternoon of Thursday, 6 April 1922. Private viewing of the sale had been available at the offices of Monsieur Gilbert at 51 Rue Le Pelletier on the previous Monday.

The stamp’s first ever public viewing took place on the afternoon of Tuesday, 4 April, exactly sixty-six years after its cancellation in British Guiana.





Speculation was rife as to the possible selling price of the stamp. A general consensus appeared to be between 165,000 and 220,000 francs ($15,000–20,000). The previous two Ferrary sales had already set records; however, the franc had strengthened considerably against the dollar in the intervening months, thereby diminishing the spending power of the Americans.

On the afternoon of the sale, room seven of the Hôtel Drouot was packed. The world’s greatest collectors, mostly represented by agents, mixed with major dealers, the press, and the simply curious to witness the sale of “the world’s rarest stamp.”





The Alsatian tobacco magnate and collector Maurice Burrus attended in person. Hugo Griebert, a German-born London dealer, represented the industrialist Arthur Hind; Theodore Champion, the great French dealer, was bidding on behalf of Alfred Lichtenstein; and both Alfred H. Caspary and Henry G. Lapham entrusted their bids to Warren H. Colson of Boston.

The two most notable European collectors, King George V of England and King Carol II of Romania, also had agents at the sale. (The British Guiana One-Cent remains the only British Colonial stamp lacking from the otherwise complete collection of George’s granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II.)

Security was handled by the gendarmerie and even the Prefect of the Paris Police, Robert Leullier, attended. Lot 295 was described simply in French. “GUYANE ANGLAISE. 1856. 1 c. noir sur carmin, catalogué chez Yvert et Tellier sous le no. 12 et sous le no. 23 dans le catalogue de Stanley Gibbons. C’est le seul exemplaire connu, obl.”

Gilbert, although the expert in charge of the sale, was not the auctioneer. As this was a government auction a French official stood at the podium and called the bids. He opened the lot at 50,000 francs. At first progress was slow as various hands raised the bidding to 100,000.

Three contenders, Griebert, Burrus, and Champion, continued to 200,000 in 5,000 franc increments, after which it was left to Griebert and Burrus to battle it out. At 295,000 francs the bid was with Griebert, Burrus advanced a further thousand before Griebert signaled a bid of 300,000 francs. The auctioneer raised his gavel and then paused, confusion in the room had arisen as to who had made the final bid and all eyes fell on Burrus.

With a wave of his hand he conceded the lot, the gavel fell, and the room erupted into applause. The following day newspapers around the world carried the news. With the 17½% French sales tax, the total came to 352,500 francs, £7,343, or $32,500 - the world record for a postage stamp and the single most expensive lot in the Ferrary sale.

Arthur Hind had never intended to even bid on the British Guiana. He recounted later that he went for an early morning walk with Hugo Griebert to discuss the sale and during their conversation Griebert talked glowingly about the One-Cent. Such was his enthusiasm that the walk ended with Hind leaving him a bid of $60,000.





Maurice Burrus also claimed that he had no interest in the stamp. In an odd story, he professed to have overheard a conversation between Hugo Griebert and an associate in a café just prior to the auction. Griebert mentioned that he had received a virtual “buy” bid from an American, and armed with this information, Burrus decided to run Griebert up during the sale.

This is a little implausible for several reasons. Firstly, Griebert would have known Burrus very well and would have been unlikely to miss the rather large gentleman in a café. Secondly, Burrus was one of the biggest buyers in the first two Ferrary sales, paying $19,000 for a British Guiana 1851 2-cent cottonreel pair on cover, so the One-Cent was bound to appeal to him.

Finally, when an experienced auction agent has a bid of three times the world record for a single item, it is unlikely that he would discuss it in public.

Following Hind’s death in 1933, Burrus, perhaps inspired by Judge Philbrick’s contention in 1882, privately asserted that he thought that the One-Cent was an altered 4-cent. In 1935 the Royal Philatelic Society, London, conclusively disproved this with detailed photography, and issued the stamp a “genuine” certificate.

Nearly twenty years later he made a final public attack, in Balasse Magazine, on the authenticity of the stamp that he claimed to have “no interest” in. Burrus’s article was refuted by Sir John Wilson in The London Philatelist, 1952. Maurice Burrus died in 1959.





Although he was sometimes called the Ferrary of America, in terms of personality Arthur Hind could not have been more different than the earlier collector. Hind was born in Bradford, England, but became a textile magnate in upstate New York, making his fortune manufacturing upholstery for the burgeoning automobile industry.

He relished the notoriety of owning the world’s most valuable stamp, freely gave interviews, and frequently loaned the stamp for exhibitions. One of the first things he did when he had the stamp was commission a postcard of it. The card, which was octagonal, also features a facsimile of Hind’s signature and was widely distributed in both America and Europe.

Many of the recipients were stamp dealers and they placed the card in their shops and businesses. For the first time the number of people who had seen the stamp went from dozens to thousands. It was during Hind’s custody that the One-Cent Black on Magenta irrefutably became the world’s best-known stamp, as well as the most expensive.

No sooner had the stamp arrived in the United States than it was returned to Britain for the first time since 1878. It was shown at the London International Stamp Exhibition from 14–28 May 1923 at the Horticultural Halls in Westminster. This is probably the first and only time the stamp was seen by King George V, who opened the event.

It is said that Hind offered the stamp to the King, who politely declined. Hind later recalled His Majesty congratulated him on his purchase. Three years later it appeared at the International Philatelic Exhibition at the Grand Central Palace, New York City, from 16–23 October 1926. The Palace, demolished in 1953, was located on Lexington Avenue between 46th and 47th Streets just north of Grand Central Terminal.

In late May 1929, Hind sent the stamp overseas again, for the Exposition Philatélique Internationale held in the French port city of Le Havre. This would be the first public exhibition of the stamp in the country where it had resided for forty-four of its seventy-three years. The good-natured and self-effacing Hind even wrote a brief article titled “The World’s Rarest Stamp” for the Catalogue of the International Philatelic Exhibition, held at Melbourne in 1928.

In it he wrote that the 1856 One-Cent “has changed me, philatelically, from an almost unknown modest collector to an almost best known prominent collector.” He also admitted that this particular stamp had caused him to be ridiculed: a New Hampshire pastor stated that Hind’s ownership would virtually guarantee St. Peter barring him from the Pearly Gates, while a London journalist described the 1856 British Guiana as “cut square and magenta in colour” and himself as “cut round and rather paler magenta.”

One story long associated with Hind’s ownership of the stamp has never been authenticated - probably because it is untrue - and yet it is rather too good to debunk. In 1938, a collector wrote an anonymous letter to Stamp and Cover Collector’s Review claiming that he too had owned a One-Cent Magenta, which he had purchased, unrecognized, many years before when the merchant vessel he was working on made port in Georgetown.

After the publicity surrounding the Ferrary auction, this unnamed collector realized that he had a treasure that should be worth more to Hind than to anyone else. He arranged a meeting at Hind’s Utica, New York, home. Hind examined the second stamp, accepted its authenticity, and agreed on a price for it.

After cash and the stamp had changed hands, Hind lit a cigar and then held his newly acquired stamp to the match. When the stamp was ash, Hind looked at the seller and declared, “There’s only one magenta One Cent Guiana.”

Over Thanksgiving of 1928, Hind married for the first time. His bride was from nearby Constantia and had been married once previously. When she became Ann Leeta Hind, she was more than thirty years younger than her 72-year-old husband. Perhaps coincidentally, Hind began to lose interest in his stamps after the wedding. He may simply have thought there were no further treasures for him to acquire.

Just before the collapse of the stock market in the crash of 1929 he supposedly put the collection up for sale and received an offer of $480,000 - but he wanted more. Soon afterwards his health, as well as his marriage, began to decline.

Arthur Hind died of pneumonia in Palm Beach, Florida, on 1 March 1933. In his will, Arthur Hind left the bulk of his still very considerable fortune to his family in England. Ann Hind, his estranged wife, was bequeathed very little: the “dwelling, furniture, paintings but not my stamp collection.” In the summer of 1933 Mrs. Hind, claimed one-third of the estate, as provided to widows by recent New York State Law, as well as the British Guiana, which she insisted had been a gift to her from her husband.

Although Ann Hind’s case for ownership of the stamp was based on her assertion that Hind had presented it to her before his death, an unforeseen - and unrelated - development bolstered her position. After he lost interest in his stamps, Hind had moved his philatelic collection from his personal study into a bank vault, but when the stamps were inventoried the British Guiana was nowhere to be found.

Frantic searches failed to locate it, and not until the safe in Hind’s study on Maple Street was examined was the One-Cent uncovered, still in the registered envelope in which it had been returned from its last exhibition. As it was in the couple’s “dwelling,” the contents of which had also been left to Mrs. Hind, a reasonable argument could be made that the British Guiana did belong to her.

Mrs. Hind did not wear her widow’s weeds for long; on 8 November 1933 she secretly wed Pascal Costa Scala, a “widely known young Utican.” In early May 1934, by which time the marriage had been disclosed, the suit was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount. Mrs. Hind Scala deemed the settlement “satisfactory.”

The one detail that was publicly confirmed was that the ownership of the One-Cent Black on Magenta had been established: it was Mrs. Scala’s.

Arthur Hind’s collection was variously dispersed through auction and private sale in the United States and England. His British and foreign stamps were consigned to a series of auctions at H. R. Harmer in London, and the British Guiana collection was sold on 7 May 1934. Perhaps to take advantage of the generally strong results of that auction - and perhaps motivated as well by the illness of George V (he would die on 20 January 1936) - Mrs. Scala consigned the One-Cent with the London firm of Harmer, Rooke for an auction on 30 October 1935.

The sale was titled “Rare Postage Stamps, including the World-Famous British Guiana 1856, 1c. magenta, offered by order of Mrs. Arthur Hind.” Prior to the sale the One-Cent Black on Magenta was submitted, for the first time, to the Expert Committee of The Royal Philatelic Society, London.

Among those who would have viewed it was the 75-year-old Sir Edward Denny Bacon. The stamp was certified as genuine by the Royal on 17 October 1935. The Harmer, Rooke catalogue trumpeted the news of the certification and succinctly described the One-Cent as “unquestionably the world’s rarest and most valuable stamp.”

The London Daily Mail tracked down Louis Vernon Vaughan, still living in British Guiana, to ask how he felt about the prospect of the stamp selling for twenty-five thousand times the six shillings he had received more than sixty years previously.

He appeared more bemused than regretful: "It is apparently coming into the market again—and the world’s greatest stamp dealers and philatelists are ready to outbid each other and pay ridiculous sums of money for that little scrap of paper that I once owned. Really, it does seem remarkable! People ask me what I think about it. … As a matter of fact, I hardly ever think of it at all now and never with disappointment or chagrin. What is the use?”

At the sale, the bidding opened at £3,500 and was steadily advanced to £7,500 ($37,500), which was, however, still below the reserve set by Mrs. Scala (said to have been $42,500), and so the stamp was withdrawn, unsold, and returned to the United States.

The final bid had been placed by Percy Loines Pemberton, son of Edward Loines Pemberton, who nearly purchased the One-Cent as part of the McKinnon collection in 1878. Mrs. Scala continued to promote and offer the stamp, and it next appeared for private sale in September 1938 with Ernest G. Jarvis of the Kenwood Stamp Company, Buffalo, New York.

With the death of King George V the previous year, Mrs. Scala had obviously reconsidered her price and it was now available for $37,500, but there were no takers. The same year, on 5 June, the great philatelist Edward Denny Bacon, who had done so much to enhance the recognition and reputation of the British Guiana, died in London.






In 1940 the British Post Office planned to celebrate the centenary of the Postage Stamp with a display during the second season of the New York World’s Fair, but the outbreak of the Second World War forced this proposal to be scrapped.

The organizers instead contacted collectors throughout the United States to provide material for a philatelic exhibition. Mrs. Hind Scala was asked and agreed to display the British Guiana. She arrived in Flushing, Queens, in a limousine, the stamp travelling separately in an armored car, a condition imposed by the underwriters who were now insuring the stamp for $50,000.

The next owner of the One-Cent Magenta may well have seen the stamp at the New York World’s Fair; if he did not, he still could hardly have been unaware of the publicity surrounding its exhibition.






The next owner of the British Guiana One-Cent was very much the opposite of Arthur Hind. While, like Hind, he had the resources to indulge in stamp collecting at a very high level, the new owner’s interest in stamps was financial, not philatelic. Frederick “Poss” Trouton Small was born on 20 May 1888 in Capricornia, Queensland.

Trained as an engineer at the University of Queensland before the First World War, Small enlisted on 4 September 1914 and served on the Gallipoli peninsula, where the French forces recommended him for the Croix de Guerre. After serving as a chief tunnel engineer, he was discharged from the Australian Imperial Force in 1916 due to illness and recurring difficulties with his knee, where he had been wounded in action.

After marrying in Australia, Small moved to Great Britain, where he was a pioneer in Rayon production. In 1924 the Smalls moved to the United States. They first lived in Cumberland, Maryland, where he worked as an engineer for the Celanese Corporation, rising to Vice President in 1940.

The Celanese Corporation, coincidentally in association with DuPont, was involved with the New York World’s Fair, and so it is possible that Small actually saw the stamp at this time. Before his death, and after his identity as an owner of the British Guiana was known, Small was quoted in The Philatelist as saying “I didn’t consider my stamp collection as a hobby, but as an investment, just like shares of stock.”

He evidently considered the 1856 One-Cent a blue chip, because he discreetly approached Finbar Kenny, Manager of the Stamp Department at Macy’s, to see if the stamp could be purchased. Kenny, in turn, contacted Mrs. Scala, and the stamp was sold for $45,000. The sale was announced on 8 August 1940, but it was shrouded in such secrecy that even Ann Hind Scala did not know the identity of the ultimate buyer.

Frederick Small would remain a mystery for nearly thirty years; supposedly his own wife was unaware that he had purchased the stamp. For the next three decades, Finbar Kenny became the public face of the British Guiana and he was often mistakenly described at its owner.

He later recalled that “When I bought it there were two other dealers (including Emil Bruechig) who had clients for it in the $50,000 range but did not want to work on a narrow margin. An offer from Canada of $60,000 (with check enclosed) was mailed to me within a month after I had bought the stamp and sold it.”







Through Kenny’s auspices, Small did make the One-Cent available for exhibition. It was featured at the 1947 United States Stamp Centenary in New York, at MIPEX in Melbourne in 1963, and, most famously, as the cornerstone of the Stanley Gibbons Catalogue Centenary in 1965 - the first time the stamp had been shown in Great Britain since 1923.

Richard Ashton, Sotheby’s stamp consultant, was at that time working for the Harmer Rooke–Stanley Gibbons Auction company, whose stand at the exhibition was close to the display of the British Guiana. Although the One-Cent had a 24-hour security guard, “Mick” Michael, the Chairman of Stanley Gibbons, asked Richard to keep an eye on the treasure. Mick’s encouragement was “Look after it - your career depends on that.”

Richard recalls Kenny arriving with the stamp, which he retrieved from his wallet.

Article featuring the British Guiana from Life, 3 May 1954 While in Small’s possession the British Guiana was also highlighted in a 1954 Life magazine article called “Stamp Album Worth $1,000,000.” Evidently for the first time, the back of the stamp was illustrated in this article, revealing the ownership marks of Ferrary, Hind, and “the present owner [whose] name … is one of the world’s best-kept secrets.”

But perhaps the best evidence of the popular fame achieved by the One-Cent Black on Magenta during Small’s ownership was its prominent role in the Walt Disney comic book, Donald Duck and the Gilded Man, in which Donald and his three nephews travel to British Guiana in search of “one old, old stamp … that’s worth more than fifty thousand dollars!”

Small retired to Fort Lauderdale in 1956, where he continued his longtime support of American and Australian tennis. Small’s identity was only revealed when, having been advised not to leave stamps in his estate, he consigned them for auction.

The balance of his collection of stamps from British Guiana sold at Robson Lowe in London on 26 March 1970, under the humorously ironic title “The ‘Great’ Collection.” Two days earlier, the One-Cent Magenta came under the hammer with Robert Siegel of New York.






Small would not be disappointed with his decision. The reappearance of this most famous of stamps after thirty years ignited a firestorm of publicity. The evening sale took place before a packed audience of philatelists, the media, and the merely curious.

When the stamp again set a record - selling for $280,000 to an investment consortium headed by Irwin Weinberg of Miner Stamp Co. The resulting press coverage included front-page, above-the-fold stories everywhere from 'The New York Times' to the Wilkes-Barre Record and an article in Life magazine titled “A One-Cent Treasure.”





The Life article featured a photograph of auctioneer Andrew Levitt displaying the One-Cent Black on Magenta behind the bars of a bank vault. Irwin Weinberg, who still regularly issues a mimeographed price list of stamps for sale, had been a dealer for nearly thirty years already when the One-Cent came up at auction in 1970, and he remembered seeing the stamp at the New York City World’s Fair.

He went to the sale as the front man and general partner of a syndicate of eight businessmen from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, who were looking for a hedge against inflation.





In promoting the British Guiana, Weinberg outdid Arthur Hind, as he made every effort to publicize the purchase and find a new buyer. Trailed by bodyguards, Weinberg carried the stamp around the world in a briefcase ostentatiously handcuffed to his wrist. In a decade of globe-trotting, he took the stamp to Zurich, Tokyo, Prague, Hamburg, Berlin, Madrid, Paris, London, Sydney, New Delhi, Toronto, New York, and Philadelphia.

At this point, Weinberg admitted that he had begun to feel that the stamp owned him, rather than the other way around, and he and his stakeholders decided that it was time to test the effectiveness of their investment strategy.





After just a decade’s absence from the sales room, the One-Cent Magenta again appeared at a Siegel auction, 5 April 1980. As an investment, the stamp proved successful: it was sold to an anonymous bidder for $935,000.

The buyer was in the room, but had left bidding instructions with the auctioneer prior to the sale, so he was able to watch the auction without drawing attention to himself.

In 1986, the new owner displayed the 1856 One-Cent as part of an exhibition of classic stamps of British Guiana at the Ameripex ’86 International Stamp Show in Chicago and was awarded the Grand Prix International.

Although the owner of the stamp was there identified by the pseudonym Rae Mader (an anagram of Demerara), it was shortly revealed, and had earlier been suspected, that the owner was actually John E. du Pont, heir to the eponymous chemical company fortune, eccentric amateur sportsman, and omnivorous collector.

Du Pont exhibited the stamp for the last time at CUPPEX 87 in Perth, in conjunction with the 1987 America’s Cup. The One-Cent was returned from Australia on a Sunday, when there was no access to the bank vault that usually housed the stamp. And on that night - but only that one night - it is true that du Pont slept with the stamp under his pillow.







The British Guiana One-Cent Black on Magenta is returning to the marketplace after its longest absence since it was in the Ferrary collection. A new generation of philatelists will have the opportunity to see this iconic talisman and witness its sale, while a few, like Irwin Weinberg, will watch the gavel fall on it for the third time.

The nationality of the new owner is not yet known, nor is his or her motivation: connoisseurship or investment. All that can be known until the auctioneer gives fair warning is that the winning bidder will own the world’s most famous and valuable stamp.
.

Global Administrator wrote:The Life article featured a photograph of auctioneer Andrew Levitt displaying the One-Cent Black on Magenta behind the bars of a bank vault. Irwin Weinberg, who still regularly issues a mimeographed price list of stamps for sale, had been a dealer for nearly thirty years already when the One-Cent came up at auction in 1970, and he remembered seeing the stamp at the New York City World’s Fair.

He went to the sale as the front man and general partner of a syndicate of eight businessmen from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, who were looking for a hedge against inflation.

In promoting the British Guiana, Weinberg outdid Arthur Hind, as he made every effort to publicize the purchase and find a new buyer. Trailed by bodyguards, Weinberg carried the stamp around the world in a briefcase ostentatiously handcuffed to his wrist. In a decade of globe-trotting, he took the stamp to Zurich, Tokyo, Prague, Hamburg, Berlin, Madrid, Paris, London, Sydney, New Delhi, Toronto, New York, and Philadelphia.

At this point, Weinberg admitted that he had begun to feel that the stamp owned him, rather than the other way around, and he and his stakeholders decided that it was time to test the effectiveness of their investment strategy.

Weinberg only bought the stamp as an investment strategy, and threw himself into the role of a travelling salesman, promoting the heck out of the stamp by shopping it around via worldwide exhibition...if he complains "the stamp owned him", it was his own doing.

And who uses the word 'mimeograhed' anymore?

Allanswood wrote:

The unique 1856 1c British Guiana Black on Magenta stamp photo

BINGO .. what a brilliant result I'd say!

The next owner of the British Guiana One-Cent was very much the opposite of Arthur Hind. While, like Hind, he had the resources to indulge in stamp collecting at a very high level, the new owner’s interest in stamps was financial, not philatelic. Frederick “Poss” Trouton Small was born on 20 May 1888 in Capricornia, Queensland.

Trained as an engineer at the University of Queensland before the First World War, Small enlisted on 4 September 1914 and served on the Gallipoli peninsula, where the French forces recommended him for the Croix de Guerre. After serving as a chief tunnel engineer, he was discharged from the Australian Imperial Force in 1916 due to illness and recurring difficulties with his knee, where he had been wounded in action.

=========

As we can see above owner of the 1856 1¢ British Guiana for 30 years was Frederick Small. He paid $US45,000 to Arthur Hind's Widow, and the Weinberg Barnum and Bailey Circus Troupe paid $US280,000 to secure it from him in 1970. And duPont later paid bought it off them 10 years later in 1980 for $US935,000 at Auction.

Thanks to my friend Duncan, member here "cazna" (ANZAC spelt backwards!) for digging out the service record from Canberra of Frederick Small. A record never before published to the best of my knowledge, in any stamp journal, and his research shows that Small landed on the very first day of the Gallipolli campaign on Anzac Cove .. the infamous "Anzac Day" of April 25, 1915 - whose Centenary is less than a year away. His rank there was a Lieutenant of the AIF.

Small was wounded in action at Gallipoli, sent home, and then re-enlisted to go 10,000 miles back to the ongoing and bloody war in Europe.

Glen

=============

Frederick Small enlisted quite early – 4th September 1914 in the 9th Battalion and quickly transferred to 3rd Field Company Engineers.

Aged 26 on enlistment, he stated he had worked for 5 years as an engineer
with Burns & Twigg at Rockhampton.

He served as a Sapper on Gallipoli with the 3rd, 5th, then 9th Field Company Engineers and was promoted to Company Quarter Master Sergeant then
2nd Lieutenant, then Lieutenant (on Gallipoli) before reverting to 2nd Lieutenant.

He was discharged as medically unfit 1/6/1916 and sent back to Australia “for change” suffering asthma, dysentry and gastric debility, the medical Board recording “Strenuous life at Anzac [Gallipoli] working underground in bad air for long hours.”

Small, on recovery, travelled to London and re-enlisted in the Engineers as a 2nd Lieutenant on 10-7-1917.

There is nothing in his Service Record about his second period of service but it would appear that he was finally discharged in 1919.

Small kept a very extensive diary of his WWI service particularly his time in Egypt prior to, and during his experiences on Gallipoli. This diary is now in the Australian War Memorial.

Unclear on his service record, but detailed in the diary, Small landed on Gallipoli on the 25th April 1915.

Small was recommended for the award of the French Croix de Guerre for bravery on Gallipoli but the award is not recorded as having been approved – this is quite often the case with foreign awards, although most are officially recorded.

He was awarded three WWI medals, the 1914-15 Star, the British War Medal, and the Victory Medal.

I will be so happy if this stamp sells for less than $1 mil, or for the price it is really worth based on its artistic design - close to nothing!

This will ring such an alarm bell among "investors" that they will all run in a hurry to offload the hot potatoes.

It will be one deal after another. We, the real collectors (especially guys like me with worthless stamps), can only win out of a botched sale.

Iconic stamp? There is simply no stamp to speak of, just a long story of buying, promoting and selling something utterly worthless

julesjelev wrote:
I will be so happy if this stamp sells for less than $1 mil, or for the price it is really worth based on its artistic design - close to nothing!

Well find a new hobby if it does, as your own stamps will not be very saleable, if most collectors feel the rarest stamp's value has collapsed.

Luckily for the hobby, you will be proven totally wrong. The superb global publicity this will get will do wonders for stamp collecting being again regarded as a respected and serious hobby.

I guess every field has to have some negative and short sighted thinkers among it.

DuPont bought it as he liked it, he and collected British Guiana very seriously, and exhibited same to top level. He did not live to see it sold so the price was irrelevant.

Just happens that I will be in NY for a few days before the auction.

Does anyone know if you can go into Sotherbys for a look or do you have to be a registered bidder?

Not sure my credit card would buy me a bid!!

cheers,
Ian

Ian, ozzies are banned - they still remember this from 1947!
Seriously though - Sothebys have detailed viewing times on their website.

I am hoping the stamp sells for over $10 Million as this will bring new investors into the field. It will be tougher to buy stamps at higher prices but my current collection will be worth more. I just have to find a new collecting niche ...

jimjung wrote:I am hoping the stamp sells for over $10 Million as this will bring new investors into the field. It will be tougher to buy stamps at higher prices but my current collection will be worth more. I just have to find a new collecting niche ...

Most stamps aren't worth much (some people say 95%, some say 99%), and adding new collectors to the field won't change the price for many items--CTO wallpaper will still be wallpaper, used USA commems will still be packet material...

Mid-range material could see price rises; high-end material could see strong rises as investors muscle in. To see real change, you need serious collector numbers--tens of thousands of collectors in China have caused prices for material there to go gangbusters, but then the stuff that's 'hot' like 1960s commems sets, weren't bought in big numbers to start with.

There should still be lots of 'cheap' fields to collect, even if the numbers of stamp collectors doubled.

Global Administrator wrote:
I guess every field has to have some negative and short sighted thinkers among it.

DuPont bought it as he liked it, he and collected British Guiana very seriously, and exhibited same to top level. He did not live to see it sold so the price was irrelevant.

Glen, with all the trouble I had logging in this morning, I had a feeling I had crossed the line with my openly expressed personal opinions.

I have to admit that I make mistakes with my conclusions occasionally. But I am still interested to see what others think. My guess is that a collector will see the 1c British Guyana differently than an investor.

I will venture out to say that in my view those buying the stamps were not collectors. They were just people eager to get more media attention. They probably did not care how the stamp looked, if it was real or a fake. The important thing to them was to be called the owner of the 1c British Guyana magenta with the associated price they paid for it.

Last but not least, the most current owner of the stamp who paid the exorbitant price was proven to be mentally ill.

Now the stamp is tarnished with being in possession of a rich criminal who killed an olympic wrestler and died in prison. Does this make it more valuable? I would personally not want to get anywhere close to it.

julesjelev wrote:
They were just people eager to get more media attention.

Frederick Small who owned it for 40 years until 1980 did not seek ANY attention. Indeed for 40 years no-one knew WHO owned it.

You are entitled to your view, but it clearly is wrong. He was a War Hero and not mentally ill either.

DuPont had a gold-medal collection of British Guiana...and to exhibit your collection needs to be complete, so, doesn't seem like he was buying the 1cent magenta just to seek attention.

Or was building up a whole collection of British Guiana just an excuse to justify owning the magenta? Doesn't really make sense that one would go to that much trouble...if he wanted attention, he could attend an auction and bid world-record-breaking prices for Picassos and Monets.

aethelwulf wrote:DuPont had a gold-medal collection of British Guiana...and to exhibit your collection needs to be complete, so, doesn't seem like he was buying the 1cent magenta just to seek attention.

I imagine he started to collect British Guyana because of the 1c magenta. It is very difficult to understand what was going on in the head of that person anyways.

julesjelev, with something about this, it's really about all those indefinable things. It's the heritage, the history of the thing if you like. As a (very) young collector in the late 1960s, I knew all about "The World's Most Valuable Stamp" - its history and description in detail, its value to the nearest £££ or $$$ and a bit of folklore about the guy who found a second one then burnt it....

Yes, common sense suggests that its a damaged, faded, tatty bit of paper and it should be worth bugger-all. Yes, a little vindictiveness hopes that some sucker is going to lose a load of money over it. Yes, the latest owner / buyer / seller is a publicity hound and not a "real" collector. Yes, all those flawed characters had more money than sense and only wanted it to show that they had bigger balls than the other guy - they were all cranks and recluses and murderers and...

BUT for all that, it's part of the fabric of this great hobby of ours, arguably the "Most Famous" stamp alongside the Penny Black, it's been a wonder and an inspiration to generations of collectors and - going back to that word again - it's part of our heritage.

Personally I hope it breaks the record again - it'll be good publicity for the hobby and hopefully some young kids seeing the news will be inspired to take up collecting and maybe, who knows, one of them will be bidding for it themselves in another 30-40 years!!!

gavin, I hear what you are saying. I enjoyed reading your post.

We just live in a world where everything is expected to grow, increase in value or multiply. There is a feeling that if the economy stops "growing" it will fall apart. Real estate prices, grocery prices, postage rates, stamps and the human population all reflect this trend.

But is it justified or reasonable or healthy or good for us?
I, as a collector do not need more new collectors. The fewer of them, the lower the stamp prices are going to be. I know why I collect what I collect - I collect because of the piece of art someone put on the stamp and the skillful design of the stamp. I collect because of the nice date-cancellations which provide a link to a place and point in time. I collect because the stamps I collect are a piece of a particular culture, yet small enough to be stored in a book.

I collect, sometimes, as a result of other hobbies and interests. Yesterday I bought a bunch of US trout/salmon stamps from Indiana, most of them at 65c / piece. Do they have a history? You bet! Most, if not all of these stamps came into existence after a contest among real artists. The stamps were then meant to be attached to fishing/hunting licenses and were carried through the bush to some beautiful places. They were signed by the individual. The license itself has nearly a complete record of the person who bought the stamp. Some licenses show signs of dunking - maybe the angler nearly drowned in pursuit of that big fish! How much more history do I need? How does this compare to the 1c magenta?

In the 100+ years since the 1c magenta was issued, there were probably all kinds of other printed artifacts that survived in singles or have perished altogether. We just do not know about them because nobody told their fascinating stories.

The price of the stamp is not going to be influenced by my opinions though. It will only take 2 rich bidders as someone mentioned. But I will be keeping a close eye on the lucky individual after the purchase.

The Treskilling Banco from Sweden is also in pretty rough shape--off-centre, reperfed, has a cut in it...the King of Sweden was invited to view the stamp at a major exhibition in Stockholm years ago, and apparently sniffed and commented it wasn't a very impressive item.

So the 2 most valuable stamps in the world, by weight the most valuable objects in the world, are 2 pretty ratty tatty items. 8)

Hopefully, no one has put this link up here yet. I just received hours ago.

For those of you who want to see the actual stamp and can not make it to the viewings, here's a link to the new video from Sotheby's with excellent views of this gem from closeups to video passes. Simply Lovely, that what I say.

http://www.sothebys.com/en/news-video/videos/2014/05/the-wor ... ecat_hero1

The Australian, Frederick Trouton Small, who secretly owned the 1c black on magenta from late 1930s until 1970, must be Australia's least known famous Philatelist.

I recall in 1970, after the stamp was auctioned, it was announced in the Australian philatelic press, to the amazement of readers including me, that the vendor was an Aussie.

We now know Small was a war hero, but precious little else appears to be recorded about the man, such as how he came to make what must have been a small fortune in life, to be able to afford what in the 1930s was a massive sum to purchase the stamp from Hind's widow.

It can be determined that he moved from Australia to the U.S. in 1924. I note also that he there in 1928 patented a "pumping apparatus".

Was his fortune based upon inventing?

A search under "Frederick T Small" produced:

The "Frederick T. Small" Specialized Collection of Russian Empire, Russian Offices abroard, Russia used in China, Mongolia, Turkey, Provisional and Civil War Issues and Ukraine. Public Auction held on Dec. 10, 11, 1974

Assuming this is the same person, clearly, we need to know more about this collector, who appears to have quietly been one of Australia's greatest philatelic exports!

Rod

Rod Perry wrote:I note also that he there in 1928 patented a "pumping apparatus".

Was his fortune based upon inventing?

Rod, I know you Queenslanders are slow readers, but ....................

Glen Stephens wrote:
After marrying in Australia, Small moved to Great Britain, where he was a pioneer in Rayon production. In 1924 the Smalls moved to the United States. They first lived in Cumberland, Maryland, where he worked as an engineer for the Celanese Corporation, rising to Vice President in 1940.

The Celanese Corporation, coincidentally in association with DuPont, was involved with the New York World’s Fair, and so it is possible that Small actually saw the stamp at this time.

So the year he was appointed Vice President, was when he bought the stamp from Hind's Widow. An early form of "Self Managed Superannuation" it seems.

Celanese Corporation, also known as Hoechst Celanese, is a Fortune 500 global technology and specialty materials company with its headquarters in Dallas, Texas, United States. The company is a leading producer of acetyl products, which are intermediate chemicals for nearly all major industries, and is the world's largest producer of vinyl acetate monomer (VAM).

Celanese's operations are primarily located in North America, Europe, and Asia. Its largest plant is in the Clear Lake area of Pasadena, Texas, USA the home to the world’s largest acetic acid plant. In 2012, Celanese reported net sales of $6.42 billion.

https://tinyurl.com/Magenta1c

Yes this above is a video well worth watching, and passing onto your stamp friends. I’ve given it a short URL, so it can be emailed faster and does not “wrap around”.

As usual with Sothebys, a great IDEA, that dies a death in the childishly sloppy execution in parts.

Cheap exceedingly common stamps with bent over corners and ripped out perfs, used to illustrate the wonders of high end stamp collecting, and hopefully spending $20 million on the “best of the best”.

Why someone in the Sothebys STAMP area did not take a hand at signing off on this we will never know.

The video has some classy stock footage from their PR Department of other rare books and objects they have sold.

THEN the cheapie footage of a few very common stamps is roughly edited in, with close ups of a few things like this ½d GB KGVI - badly creased, and with ripped out perfs, and a bent over corner. They HAVE to be kidding??????
A trained CHIMP would not have used that, but we are talking Sothebys here!

David Redden, the Sothebys Director Of Special Projects does the commentary, and he should be ashamed to have signed off on it when with a TINY bit more imagination, it could have been 1000 times better.

However “it is what it is”, and they have clearly left it a month or so too late to have released it really, 3 weeks before the sale, but again we are talking Sothebys.

The image of the stamp is also pretty sloppy.

Someone has finally blown off the small piece of stamp hinge glassine from the centre, that is in the centre of the other official media images, (and in 1 shot in the clip) but the 2 x large ugly white lint pieces at left are still there - in signature and left border.

Most ebay sellers of $5 items take better and more careful scans or photos of their items than has occurred with this.

I know I always clean my scanner platen before taking scans of anything valuable, and as Sothebys stand to make about TWO MILLION DOLLARS in commissions on this, you’d image they could do the same.

The image they do show of the stamp does show the “red over-painting” under the ‘DEMEM‘ part of the DEMEMARA cancel, mentioned on the new Royal Cert.

That video link again is -

Global Administrator wrote:
Cheap exceedingly common stamps with bent over corners and ripped out perfs, used to illustrate the wonders of high end stamp collecting, and hopefully spending $20 million on the “best of the best”.

I kind of made the same observation, but what I saw did not surprise me at all.

The stamp is not going to be sold to a typical stamp collector. Its condition appears to be irrelevant. We all know it has many faults.

Maybe comparing the stamp to a very common damaged one, makes it stand out and look worth the millions they hope to get for it.

Well I gathered what info I found, used the blurb off the website and more details from here and have printed myself a 60 page A4 book to have a read through.

Some of the images off the website had to be reduced in size a lot as they were each about an A4 page. The cottonreels and other rare examples are quite something to see.

.

Global Administrator wrote:As usual with Sothebys, a great IDEA, that dies a death in the childishly sloppy execution in parts.

Cheap exceedingly common stamps with bent over corners and ripped out perfs, used to illustrate the wonders of high end stamp collecting, and hopefully spending $20 million on the “best of the best”.

Why someone in the Sothebys STAMP area did not take a hand at signing off on this we will never know.

The video has some classy stock footage from their PR Department of other rare books and objects they have sold.

The contact people listed for the sale are Books & Manuscripts Department staff--so the powers-that-be thought paper is paper? The Books Chairman is also the Head of "Special Projects"--so what, any one-off sales like this are given to him? (I remember years ago Sotheby's did a one-off sale of space memorabilia, including a moon buggy still sitting on the moon ).

They sent out an email today to promote the sale, and link to the online catalogue. Their blurb in the email says that this sale follows in Sotheby's footsteps of other important manuscript items, including the Magna Carta and the Palm Bay Psalter (first book printed in America). So they're really aiming this sale at the wider "alternative investment" market, not only the philatelic niche.

Global Administrator wrote:Frederick Small enlisted quite early – 4th September 1914 in the 9th Battalion and quickly transferred to 3rd Field Company Engineers.
...
Small, on recovery, travelled to London and re-enlisted in the Engineers as a 2nd Lieutenant on 10-7-1917.

There is nothing in his Service Record about his second period of service but it would appear that he was finally discharged in 1919.

Service record is available on the National Archives of Australia (NAA) - http://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/Det ... 480&isAv=N - click on view digital copy. There are 80 pages.

Page 37 & 41 - It appears he declines his invalidity pension as he is now in good health - address HM Factory, Gretna - which was a large munitions factory at Gretna, SW Scotland - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HM_Factory,_Gretna

Page 54 - Re-enlistment at Administrative Headquarters, London, 10/7/17.

Page 77 has something about his re-enlistment, needs someone who understands military jargon!

Dave.

The catalogue for the Du Pont British Guiana collection is online now:

http://www.davidfeldman.com/buying/auctions/upcoming-auction ... d-auction/

smithrhm97 wrote:The catalogue for the Du Pont British Guiana collection is online now:

http://www.davidfeldman.com/buying/auctions/upcoming-auction ... d-auction/

I received mine the other day; Du Pont's accumulation of Cottonreels and other primitives was spectacular. What a fantasy...to be of unlimited financial means and to be a collector of BG (or Mauritius, or Uganda, or Hawaii, etc).

Not to be petty, though, but did he do any research or contribute otherwise to our knowledge of the BG earlies?

The album pages were probably 30 years old. So the bits of research that were in there (like only one known, earliest known, etc.) was pretty out of date.

The actual catalogue for the collection is beautiful. Lots of info about how the Cottonreels were made. Very nice pics, good write-ups. Definitely a keeper.

smithrhm97 wrote:The album pages were probably 30 years old. So the bits of research that were in there (like only one known, earliest known, etc.) was pretty out of date.

He probably wasn't doing much collecting in prison, so the pages have to at least date from before that.

Arab Shiek Alert, based on value per gm, the British Guiana 1 cent magenta is the most expensive art ever to be auctioned. http://www.stampsareart.com/paper-2/which-art-is-worth-more- ... 1c-magenta

There is no such thing as price per gram when it comes to art. These are not oranges or potatoes.

The stamp still costs less than the picture in question, maybe 10 or 100 times less.

The stamp in my opinion is extremely overvalued. As to the picture? I would say nothing. The picture is actually ART.

StampsAreArt wrote:
Arab Shiek Alert, based on value per gm, the British Guiana 1 cent magenta is the most expensive art ever to be auctioned. https://www.stampsareart.com/paper-2/which-art-is-worth-more- ... 1c-magenta

This stamp actually is the most valuable object ON EARTH for size and weight - no question about it. Nothing else comes even close. As I typed in my new 'Stamp News' article -

https://www.glenstephens.com/snjune14.html

Anyway I hope it gets a huge price, as that will be superb and positive global publicity for stamps and most welcome. “The world’s most valuable object by weight” etc. Mainstream media for stamps is very scarce these days.

Weight has been estimated to be about the same as the Sweden 3sk “Tre Skilling Yellow” which we know weighs exactly 0.02675 grams (0.0009 ounces).

If the 1856 1¢ British Guiana stamp Guiana is invoiced for around a mid-point $US16 million when all the nasty auction fees are added, it gives the stamp the staggering cost of some $US600 Billion per kilogram.

I had a client who is a Math Professor in Illinois check my figure, and he agrees it is correct! This makes the stamp the most valuable thing in the world by weight or volume - no contest.

etc, etc

Excellent and interesting analysis. I hope you are right that this sort of thing will drum up some general media focus on stamps and collecting, as that helps all of us.

I also predict that SG will use it to send at least one 'investment' related email out...

As well as being most valuable thing in the world by weight, I expect it scores several orders of magnitude more than the next most valuable thing by volume too.

Maybe have the Maths Professor check it out, but my estimate, based on the stamp being 10mm by 10mm* and 0.75mm thick* and the stamp selling for the same $16 million (including all the 'vig' that the auction houses put on it), this means it is selling at $213 million per cubic centimetre or



*I couldn't find the exact dimensions for this stamp anywhere, so if anyone can provide this (and as a bonus, the size of the corner cuts), I can fine tune these figures.

I didn't work out the 'per cubic meter' values as they were too large to be easily comprehended.

I expect that this stamp is also contains the most expensive atoms known in the world. i.e. the price per atom will be way more than for anything else, including exotic things like

'Bose Einstein condensate', 'heavy water', 'super conductors', 'nano tubes', etc.

If we have any scientists here who fancy working this out I'd be interested to see this stamp plus a few comparisons to rank it.

Or at a push I will roll up my sleeves and look up Avogadro's number and try to work out my best moles-per-stamp estimates, etc.

Exciting times in the general media for Stamp collectors!

Norbert


PS Here are a few fun StampBoards numbers:

If Glen had decided on day one to charge $4.20 for each message we post here, with 383,000-odd messages as of the time of writing, he’d have raised enough cash to buy this stamp.

If instead posting was free but he wanted to charge to start each topic, buying the stamp for the $16 million ‘mid price’ would have required that each of the 51,500-ish topics cost $310 each to start.

Finally, if the stamp purchase were to be paid for by we, the members of Stampboards, we could all just chip in.

As the largest stamp board on the internet, with a mighty 12,217 users (as of now), a bargain price of $1,310 each StampBoards member should cover our purchase. So, who’s for a whip-round?

Norbert Jenkins wrote: PS Here are a few fun StampBoards numbers:

If Glen had decided on day one to charge $4.20 for each message we post here, with 383,000-odd messages as of the time of writing, he’d have raised enough cash to buy this stamp.

If instead posting was free but he wanted to charge to start each topic, buying the stamp for the $16 million ‘mid price’ would have required that each of the 51,500-ish topics cost $310 each to start.

Finally, if the stamp purchase were to be paid for by we, the members of Stampboards, we could all just chip in. As the largest stamp board on the internet, with a mighty 12,217 users (as of now), a bargain price of $1,310 each StampBoards member should cover our purchase. So, who’s for a whip-round?

What Glen should have done is to charge per View! That would have made it a true bargain for each of us to own 1/12,217th of this beauty.

Norbert Jenkins wrote:
If Glen had decided on day one to charge $4.20 for each message we post here, with 383,000-odd messages as of the time of writing, he’d have raised enough cash to buy this stamp.

Don't give up your day job to go into Maths or Accounting.

We have over 3.8 MILLION posts here.

7 figures, not 6. Big difference. 8)

Norbert your paper calculations are a fair bit out.

I measure the stamp to be 24mm by 21mm minus the corners (but I would hazard a guess of a missing 10x10mm area in total to give an area of 400mm².

However paper is not that thick! Modern photocopy paper is 0.1mm (10 sheets to a mm).

Given that it's handmade older paper I would double the thickness based on my experience and give the thickness somewhere around 0.2 to 0.25mm thick, not 0.75!

Oddly enough, after all that, the volume probably isn't that far off what you've already speculated.
.

Oh well, I may have been off by a couple of quid here or there but at least I managed to get some nice colours into my post

Thanks Allanswood for the better measurements - that will help me to calculate better if and when I re-run the calculation. Strange that the 'thickness' figure is so different (but in retrospect, a quick 'pages per inch' heuristic shows yours to be much more likely) - I took my figure from the internet and made the 'schoolboy error' of taking what I was told there at face value.

Global Administrator wrote:Don't give up your day job to go into Maths or Accounting

If I told you what my day job is and indeed what my Maths and Accounting qualifications are, I don’t know which of us would be laughing and which crying

But seriously, I blame a typo for my error and a lack of proof reading at the silly time I was writing.

Guess it means that you would only have had to charge 42p per post in order to be able to afford this stamp.

That statistic puts both the price of the stamp and the popularity of StampBoards into perspective and reflects very positively on both, I think.

Norbert Jenkins wrote:
If I told you what my day job is and indeed what my Maths and Accounting qualifications are, I don’t know which of us would be laughing and which crying

Guess it means that you would only have had to charge 42p per post in order to be able to afford this stamp.

Talk about dig that hole deeper and deeper! Please don't use this thread on your next Accountancy CV attesting to your dazzling Maths.

42p a post is still about a full decimal place short ...... agree? And you really meant to type 42 CENTS not 42 PENCE correct? Your first $ figure was right, but not your member numbers.

Global Administrator wrote:

Norbert Jenkins wrote:
If I told you what my day job is and indeed what my Maths and Accounting qualifications are, I don’t know which of us would be laughing and which crying

Guess it means that you would only have had to charge 42p per post in order to be able to afford this stamp.

Talk about dig that hole deeper and deeper! Please don't use this thread on your next Accountancy CV attesting to your dazzling Maths.

42p a post is still about a full decimal place short ...... agree? And you really meant to type 42 CENTS not 42 PENCE correct? Your first $ figure was right, but not your member numbers.

I don't want to derail this thread any further, but so I will wrap up on this aspect by pointing out that when one reaches a certain level of understanding with mathematics, one realises that Astemeyer correctly postulates that one and two are in fact the same thing, observed from different precepts.

So I am sure you will now agree that all our answers are equally valid. I wouldn't normally give ground so easily, but as I'm feeling magnanimous, I'm happy to call this a draw

Norbert

PS At a push, I guess I'll admit I totally 'f*nn*ed it up' and while my idea was worth a 6 out of 10, the execution was worth perhaps 2 out of 10!

I'm anxiously awaiting the start of the auction! This will be most interesting indeed!

Dunno about drumming up interest in collecting though...I figure some newbie will find an old envelope in the attic and think it is the next rarest stamp on earth! He/She will probably contact a dealer (Glen perhaps?) and spend an hour of his time explaining how the stamp was found, in an old shoe box, tucked in the corner of a brass-bound trunk in uncle Jimmy's attic, that in turn came from grandmas house way back in 1965!

I got this off the Sotheby's new preview of this sale. Seems Sotheby's has their own photoshop of the stamp and cleaned up the image a bit.
Here's the link although the images may change day-to-day:

http://www.sothebys.com/en.html

and a new video:

http://www.sothebys.com/content/sothebys/en/news-video/video ... uiana.html

Sothebys are BEYOND clueless if that is the BEST image they can conjure up, a fortnight before the sale.

Near every stamp ebayer does a better job with images than they do.

I think the new promo image is quite nice - it's only used as part of a montage of artisitc bits and looks quite effective. Not meant to be the "money shot".

The image posted just above is only part of the screen effect.

I didn't get a download of the first video, (which may have been deleted?). I quite liked it.
.

Global Administrator wrote:Sothebys are BEYOND clueless if that is the BEST image they can conjure up, a fortnight before the sale.

Near every stamp ebayer does a better job with images than they do.

To be fair, I've not seen an eBay listing with a video attached to it that's been as good as the 3 minute potted history of this stamp on the Sotherbys site.

Comparing it to say the Sandafayre auction videos of stamps*, there's a step change in production values, in my opinion.

Has anyone seen other stamp auction sales descriptions in video form? It's not common as far as I can see.

Norbert

* not the stamp in quesion of course, as they don't have one in stock currently

12 days to go.
Norbert- if you are organising the SB whip-around you'd better get your skates on

MargoZ wrote:12 days to go.
Norbert- if you are organising the SB whip-around you'd better get your skates on

I'd love to but I'm still trying to make sure I get the maths right. 13 thousand users and about 13 million dollars to find - I make that maybe £27 pounds each, but I may be off slightly so I'm working it all through again before Glen points out the error of my ways again

12 days though? I'd best get my skates on, that's less than 5 weeks by my calculation!

LOL....I'll stump up for £30 if that helps

MargoZ wrote:LOL....I'll stump up for £30 if that helps

Awesome - we are in that case over half way there!

Norbert Jenkins wrote:13 thousand users and about 13 million dollars to find - I make that maybe £27 pounds each, but I may be off slightly so I'm working it all through again before Glen points out the error of my ways again

Glen didn't speak, but I will arrange the figures for you (I know you were joking)

- USA members: $ 1,000.00 each
- UK members: £ 595.34 each
- EU members: € 733.87 each
- CAN members: C$ 1.093,16 each
- AUS members: AUD 1.072,35 each
- JAP members : JPY 102430 each
- China members: CNY 6254,80 each

and so on .....

Good luck and good skating

P.S. don't count me in. I don't like this ugly piece of paper and, should the 13 thousand members keep it at home for just ONE day, calculating 3 days for shipping to the next one, my turn would be on October 10th 2056.

I will better spend this money for something that I really like and can have at home forever, like the original paintings of the definitive series of Somalia that I showed in the thread on my collection (advertising), that had approximately the same cost (each) of 1/13.000 of this stamp.