2017-01-18 Wed

A Mauritius 1847 1d & 2d “Post Office” printing plate was recently sold for €1,300,000 and a cover with two 1d stamps was sold for €2,500,000! Many stamp collectors across the globe are very fond of the postal history and cancellations of Mauritius. Philatelic author Edward B. Proud has mentioned all of it in his 2001 work “The Postal History of Mauritius” (ISBN 1 872465 323).

The work talks about the postal history of the British administrative period from 1810 with pre-stamp postmarks that were applied at the Port Louis Post Office. None of the 5 different pre-stamp handstamp types is used simultaneously. Mr Proud shows the latest known use on 15/8/1834 and the first known on 1/1/1838 with a gap of over 3 years and 3 months.

A large circular handstamp applied to an entire letter dated 10th June 1835 from Port Louis to Bordeaux was discovered recently to fill this time gap. This came as a big surprise for collectors as nobody thought that such a cover would exist.

Once a rare Mauritius stamp or cover is sold in the market, it may disappear for an entire generation or for 182 years.