The British Guiana 1c magenta is regarded by many as the world's most famous stamp A postage stamp is adhesive paper evidence of a fee paid for postal services. Usually a small rectangle attached to an envelope, the stamp signifies the person sending it has fully or partly paid for delivery. Postage stamps are the most popular way of paying for retail mail; alternatives include prepaid-postage envelopes and postage meters. The.[1] It was issued in limited numbers in British Guiana British Guiana was the name of the British colony on the northern coast of South America, now the independent nation of Guyana (now Guyana Guyana , officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana and previously known as British Guiana, is a state on the northern coast of South America that is culturally associated with the Anglophone Caribbean. It is the only state of the Commonwealth of Nations on mainland South America. Guyana is bordered to the east by Suriname, to the south and) in 1856, and only one specimen is now known to exist.
It is imperforate, printed in black on magenta Magenta is a purplish-pink color evoked by lights with less power in yellowish-green wavelengths than in blue and red wavelengths . In light experiments, magenta can be produced by removing the lime-green wavelengths from white light. It is an extra-spectral color, meaning it cannot be generated by a single wavelength of light, being a mixture of paper, and it features a sailing ship Sailing ship is now used to refer to any large wind-powered vessel. In technical terms, a ship was a sailing vessel with a specific rig of at least three masts, square rigged on all of them, making the sailing adjective redundant. In popular usage "ship" became associated with all large sailing vessels and when steam power came along the along with the colony's Latin Latin is an Italic language historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Roman conquest, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe. Romance languages such as Italian, French, Catalan, Romanian, Spanish, and Portuguese are descended from Latin, while many others, especially European languages, including 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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Background
The 1c magenta was part of a series of three definitive stamps A definitive stamp is a postage stamp that is part of a regular issue of a country's stamps available for sale by the postal service for a prolonged period of time. The term is used in contrast with a "provisional stamp", one that is issued for a temporary period until regular stamps are available, or a "commemorative stamp", a 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 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 Georgetown, estimated population 239,227 , is the capital and largest city of Guyana, located in the Demerara-Mahaica region. It is situated on the Atlantic Ocean coast at the mouth of the Demerara River and it was nicknamed 'Garden City of the Caribbean.' Georgetown is located at 6°48′N 58°10′W / 6.8°N 58.167°W. The city serves, to print out an emergency issue of three stamps. Dalton gave some specifications about the design, but the printer chose to add a ship image of his own design on the stamp series. Dalton was not pleased with the end result, and as a safeguard against forgery ordered that all correspondence bearing the stamps be autographed by the post office clerks. This particular stamp was initialed E.D.W. by the clerk E.D.Wight.
Description and history
Only one copy of the 1c stamp is known to exist. It is in used condition and has been cut in an octagonal In geometry, an octagon is a polygon that has eight sides. A regular octagon is represented by the Schläfli symbol {8} shape. A signature, in accordance to 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 12-year-old Scottish schoolboy Vernon Vaughan in the Guyanese town of Demerara Demerara in South America was one of the original British colonies that were joined into the colony of British Guiana, now Guyana. It was located about the lower courses of the Demerara River, and its main town was Georgetown. Demerara is now one of three counties of Guyana. The other two counties are Berbice and Essequibo. Before the colony, amongst his uncle's letters. There was no record of it in his stamp catalogue, so he sold it some weeks later for a few shillings to a local dealer, N.R. McKinnon. After that, the price escalated. It was bought by a succession of collectors before being bought by Philippe la Rénotière von Ferrary Philip Ferrari de La Renotière, Herzog von Gallièra in Genua, was a legendary stamp collector, assembling probably the most complete worldwide collection that ever existed, or is likely to exist. Amongst his extremely rare stamps were the unique Tre Skilling Yellow of Sweden and the 1856 one-cent "Black on Magenta" of British Guiana 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 World War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict that embroiled most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Entente and the Central Powers. Over 70 million military personnel were mobilized in one of the largest wars in history. The main. 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 George V was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 1910 through World War I (1914–1918) until his death in 1936. He was the first British monarch of the House of Windsor, which he created from the British branch of the German House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha), and it was sold by his widow for US$40,000 to a Florida engineer. In 1970, a syndicate of Pennsylvanian investors, headed by Irwin Weinberg, purchased the stamp for $280,000 and spent much of the decade exhibiting the stamp in a worldwide tour. John E. du Pont bought it for $935,000 in 1980. Today it is believed to be locked away in a bank vault, while its owner serves a 30-year sentence for murder.[2]
The details of the stamp can be better seen in this image of the 4 cent stamp of the same issueControversies
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 rumor developed that a second copy of the stamp had been discovered, and that the then owner of the stamp, Arthur Hind, had quietly purchased this second copy and destroyed it. The rumor has not been substantiated.
In 1999, a second 1c stamp was claimed to have been discovered in Bremen The City Municipality of Bremen is a Hanseatic city in northwestern Germany. A port city along the river Weser, about 60 km (37 mi) south from its mouth on the North Sea, Bremen is part of the Bremen-Oldenburg metropolitan area (2.37 million people). Bremen and Bremerhaven are the two cities in the state of Bremen (official name: Freie Hansestadt, Germany Germany (pronounced /ˈdʒɜrməni/ ), officially the Federal Republic of Germany (German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland, pronounced [ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant] ( listen)), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south. 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]
Popular culture
- The Guyana 1c was used as a plot device in the 1941 movie, "The Saint in Palm Springs."[6] In the movie its value was stated to be $65,000.
- The stamp was sought after in the 1952 Carl Barks Carl Barks was a famous Disney Studio illustrator and comic book creator, who invented Duckburg and many of its inhabitants, such as Scrooge McDuck (1947), Gladstone Gander (1948), the Beagle Boys (1951), Gyro Gearloose (1952), Flintheart Glomgold (1956), John D. Rockerduck (1961) and Magica De Spell (1961). The quality of his scripts and drawings comic "The Gilded Man",[7] in which Donald Duck Donald Duck is a cartoon character from The Walt Disney Company. Donald is a white anthropomorphic duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He usually wears a sailor shirt, cap, and a red or black bow tie, but no trousers . Donald's most famous personality trait is his easily provoked and occasionally explosive temper, the philatelist, said it was "worth more than fifty thousand dollars!"
References
- ^ Carlton, R. Scott (1997). The International Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Philatelics. Iola, WI: Krause. p. 36. ISBN 0873414489.
- ^ Rachlin, Harvey (1996). Lucy's Bones, Sacred Stones, and Einstein's Brain: The Remarkable Stories Behind the Great Artifacts of History, From Antiquity to the Modern Era. Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 0-8050-6406-0.
- ^ Sheryll Oswald, "Peter Winter and the modern German forgeries on eBay" (28 July, 2001)
- ^ "British Guiana 1c, 1856: Weltrarität oder Fälschung?" Bund Deutscher Philatelisten (BDPh) e.V. (in German)
- ^ "Is the British Guiana 1c unique?" Stamp Online
- ^ "The Saint in Palm Springs", IMDb
- ^ "Donald Duck: The Gilded Man" COA
See also
Categories: Postage stamps
