2016-07-21 Thu

The 1867 1-shilling rose and black Virgin Islands’ error stamp is considered to be one of the most famous error stamps. The normal stamp has a depiction of black coloured St. Ursula with a rose coloured background.

Experts state that Christopher Columbus named the now known British Virgin Islands to honour the legend of the martyr St. Ursula, during his second voyage to the Americas in 1493. The legend says that she and her 11,000 virgin handmaidens were murdered by Huns.

The stamp is special because the central figure of it is omitted and is popularly known to collectors as “Missing Virgin”. Only 10 of these stamps were printed out of which only three exist. Some other experts state that six examples exist. Finally Simon Goldblatt revealed in An Album of Rare Stamps that eight stamps had been identified.

The perforations of these stamps are cut with scissors and perfs are clipped on one or two sides.

One of these stamps was sold for $229,778 at the Spink’s London auction in 2011.

Another such error stamp with original gum was sold for $170,000 at a David Feldman auction in Geneva in December 2015. Click here to read complete story about this auction. One such stamp is at the Royal Philatelic Collection.

Some experts say that it is a genuine error, some say it is a proof or belong to a perforation trial sheet.