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| British Guiana 1c magenta | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Country of production | British Guiana (now Guyana) |
| Location of production | Georgetown |
| Date of production | 1856 |
| Nature of rarity | Very limited printing |
| Estimated existence | 1 |
| Face value | 1c |
| Estimated value | US$935,000 (last sale, 1980) |
It is imperforate, printed in black on magenta paper, and it features a sailing ship along with the colony's Latin motto "Damus Petimus Que Vicissim" (We give and expect in return) in the middle. Four thin lines frame the ship. The stamp's country of issue and value in small black upper case lettering in turn surround the frame.
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[edit] Background
The 1c magenta was part of a series of three definitive stamps issued in that year and was intended for use on local newspapers. The other two stamps, a 4c magenta and 4c blue, were intended for letter postage.The issue came about through mischance. An anticipated delivery of stamps never arrived by ship in 1856, so the local postmaster, E.T.E. Dalton, authorised a printer, Joseph Baum and William Dallas, who were the publishers of the Official Gazette newspaper in Georgetown, to print out an emergency issue of three stamps. Dalton gave some specifications about the design, but the printer chose to add a ship image of his own design on the stamp series. Dalton was not pleased with the end result, and as a safeguard against forgery ordered that all correspondence bearing the stamps be autographed by the post office clerks. This particular stamp was initialled E.D.W. by the clerk E.D.Wight.
[edit] Description and history
Only one copy of the 1c stamp is known to exist. It is in used condition and has been cut in an octagonal shape. A signature, in accordance with Dalton's policy, can be seen on the left hand side. Although dirty and heavily postmarked on the upper left hand side, it nonetheless could be the most valuable stamp in existence.It was discovered in 1873 by a 12-year-old Scottish schoolboy, Vernon Vaughan, in the Guyanese town of Demerara, amongst his uncle's letters. There was no record of it in his stamp catalogue, so he sold it some weeks later for a few shillings to a local dealer, N.R. McKinnon. After that, the price escalated. It was bought by a succession of collectors before being bought by Philipp von Ferrary in the 1880s for US$750. His massive stamp collection was willed to a Berlin museum. Following Ferrary's death in 1917, the entire collection was taken by France as war reparations following the end of World War I. Arthur Hind bought it during the series of fourteen auctions in 1922 for over US$36,000 (reportedly outbidding three kings, including King George V), and it was sold by his widow for US$40,000 to a Florida engineer. In 1970, a syndicate of Pennsylvanian investors, headed by Irwin Weinberg, purchased the stamp for $280,000 and spent much of the decade exhibiting the stamp in a worldwide tour. John E. du Pont bought it for $935,000 in 1980. Subsequently it was believed to be locked away in a bank vault while its owner was in prison.[2]
[edit] Controversies
At one point, it was suggested that the 1c stamp was merely a "doctored" copy of the magenta 4c stamp of the 1856 series, a stamp very similar to the 1c stamp in appearance. These claims were disproven.In the 1920s a rumour developed that a second copy of the stamp had been discovered, and that the then owner of the stamp, Arthur Hind, had quietly purchased this second copy and destroyed it. The rumour has not been substantiated.
In 1999, a second 1c stamp was claimed to have been discovered in Bremen, Germany. The stamp was owned by Peter Winter, who is widely known for producing many forgeries of classic philatelic items,[3] printed as facsimiles on modern paper. Nevertheless, two European experts, Rolf Roeder and David Feldman, have said Winter's stamp is genuine.[4] The stamp was twice examined and found to be a fake by the Royal Philatelic Society London. In their opinion, this specimen in fact was an altered 4c magenta stamp.[5]
[edit] Popular culture
- The Guyana 1c was used as a plot device in the 1941 film, "The Saint in Palm Springs."[6] In the film its value was stated to be $65,000.
- The stamp was sought after in the 1952 Carl Barks comic "The Gilded Man",[7] in which Donald Duck, the philatelist, said it was "worth more than fifty thousand dollars!"
- The stamp was mentioned in John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee series "The Scarlet Ruse" (1972) as being worth $325,000. With respect to this stamp and all stamp collecting, Travis muses "just what preoccupation of man is worth futzing with?"
