the dyes got mixed up. According to the stranger, only one sheet was printed before the error was noticed, and all but one stamp was destroyed. This is now worth more than $150,000. And had the stranger ever seen the stamp? 'Seen it? I've owned it.' The problem was, he had needed some cash, sold the stamp, regretted it almost instantly, and now had enough 'simoleons' to buy it back. Ah, if only things were that easy. The new owner of the stamp won't sell it even for $450,000, and the stranger has gotten desperate. 'Do you realise what it is like to own something when it's the only one in the world?' he asks the detective.
'No, mebbe I don't.'
The stranger asks the detective to steal the stamp back for him, but the fee the detective wantsâ$250,000âis too steep. They say goodbye. And then the adventure really starts, with the detective travelling to New York to track down the dealer who bought the stamp from the stranger, and then the man who bought it from the dealer. Only problem: the man who bought it has been murdered...
***
As a stamp collector, the Blue Mauritius follows you to your grave. More exotic than the Penny Black and a hundred times rarer, it is a stamp so heavy with lore that its true history outflanks its fictitious appearances. Any account * will describe the story of the glamorous ball held in Port Louis in 1847 by the Governor's wife Lady Gomm. The envelopes used for the invitations marked the first ever use of the one-penny orange-red and the twopence blue, and in so doing established Mauritius as only the fifth country in the world to issue stamps. The twopence stamp, which was modelled on the British Penny Red but was of far coarser design, carried an inscription on all four sides: Postage, Mauritius, Two Pence, Post Office. These days a British colony stamp would probably carry a picture of an indigenous species, or an extinct one, which in the case of Mauritius would have been the dodo. In 1847 it was a badly drawn portrait of Queen Victoria with something approaching a double chin. It is believed 500 were printed of each value, but only twenty-six or twenty-seven are known to have survived. The stamps continued to be worth twopence (or less because they were used) until about 1865, when a market for them was established by French collectors. As Detective Brandon was informed by the New York dealer he met on his travels, the stamp has 'no legal value whatsoever ... the immense value that attaches to it is given only by the few specialists for that kind of thing that there are in the world'. This is the essence of all stamp collecting, indeed of collecting anything: you don't have to be one of the Duveen brothers to know that a stamp, like everything else you may purchase at auction, is only worth what someone is prepared to pay for it.
Part of the initial allure in Franceâapart from the fact that these stamps were a vivid fresh discovery in a flourishing new hobbyâwas that it contained the words 'Post Office', whereas the stamps printed from an improved engraving the following year in far greater numbers bore the words 'Post Paid'. It was also very rare, as the vast majority were thrown away in Mauritian waste bins well before new ballgowns were ordered for Lady Gomm's party (1,000 'Post Office' stamps were printed in 1847, whereas it is believed 100,000 of the 'Post Paid' stamps were printed between 1848 and 1859). And in this way the stamp became a holy grail. One id used stamp surfaced in 1869 in Bordeaux and was sold to a female dealer named Madame Desbois. It was then bought by Moens along with some other stamps, who sold it on to a collector for about £10 in 1870. In 1897 a dealer bought the stamp as part of this man's entire collection, valuing it at about £1,200. In 1901 it was bought by the Berlin Reichspostmuseum, where it was placed in a glass-fronted display frame, surviving the Second World War first in the museum's vaults and then in a mineshaft in Eisleben.
'No, mebbe I don't.'
The stranger asks the detective to steal the stamp back for him, but the fee the detective wantsâ$250,000âis too steep. They say goodbye. And then the adventure really starts, with the detective travelling to New York to track down the dealer who bought the stamp from the stranger, and then the man who bought it from the dealer. Only problem: the man who bought it has been murdered...
***
As a stamp collector, the Blue Mauritius follows you to your grave. More exotic than the Penny Black and a hundred times rarer, it is a stamp so heavy with lore that its true history outflanks its fictitious appearances. Any account * will describe the story of the glamorous ball held in Port Louis in 1847 by the Governor's wife Lady Gomm. The envelopes used for the invitations marked the first ever use of the one-penny orange-red and the twopence blue, and in so doing established Mauritius as only the fifth country in the world to issue stamps. The twopence stamp, which was modelled on the British Penny Red but was of far coarser design, carried an inscription on all four sides: Postage, Mauritius, Two Pence, Post Office. These days a British colony stamp would probably carry a picture of an indigenous species, or an extinct one, which in the case of Mauritius would have been the dodo. In 1847 it was a badly drawn portrait of Queen Victoria with something approaching a double chin. It is believed 500 were printed of each value, but only twenty-six or twenty-seven are known to have survived. The stamps continued to be worth twopence (or less because they were used) until about 1865, when a market for them was established by French collectors. As Detective Brandon was informed by the New York dealer he met on his travels, the stamp has 'no legal value whatsoever ... the immense value that attaches to it is given only by the few specialists for that kind of thing that there are in the world'. This is the essence of all stamp collecting, indeed of collecting anything: you don't have to be one of the Duveen brothers to know that a stamp, like everything else you may purchase at auction, is only worth what someone is prepared to pay for it.
Part of the initial allure in Franceâapart from the fact that these stamps were a vivid fresh discovery in a flourishing new hobbyâwas that it contained the words 'Post Office', whereas the stamps printed from an improved engraving the following year in far greater numbers bore the words 'Post Paid'. It was also very rare, as the vast majority were thrown away in Mauritian waste bins well before new ballgowns were ordered for Lady Gomm's party (1,000 'Post Office' stamps were printed in 1847, whereas it is believed 100,000 of the 'Post Paid' stamps were printed between 1848 and 1859). And in this way the stamp became a holy grail. One id used stamp surfaced in 1869 in Bordeaux and was sold to a female dealer named Madame Desbois. It was then bought by Moens along with some other stamps, who sold it on to a collector for about £10 in 1870. In 1897 a dealer bought the stamp as part of this man's entire collection, valuing it at about £1,200. In 1901 it was bought by the Berlin Reichspostmuseum, where it was placed in a glass-fronted display frame, surviving the Second World War first in the museum's vaults and then in a mineshaft in Eisleben.
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