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Authors: Simon Garfield
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In 1977, a year after a former US army soldier had offered the frame for sale to the London philatelist Robson Lowe (who reported this offer to Interpol), the soldier surrendered it to the US Customs Service. Following reunification, it was returned to a postal museum in Bonn, and it is now on display at its new permanent home (until history pulls it away ...) in the Museum fur Post und Kommunikation in Berlin. And no doubt those who see it report its bearing as 'luminous', for nothing adds ardent light to a stamp better than a brilliant past.
One twopence specimen, unused, slightly damaged and repaired, followed a similar route from Bordeaux to Madame Desbois, and then to J. B. Moens. Moens sold it to Count Ferrary in 1875, for 600 francs (about £24). In 1886 Ferrary swapped the stamp with T. K. Tapling, whose collection was bequeathed to the British Museum after his death in 1891. This was the one that really caught my eye.
Tapling and Ferrary were the two giants of nineteenth-century collecting, and they couldn't have been more different. Tapling was seven years younger, educated at Harrow, a Member of Parliament, a cricketer (he played one match for the MCC), fond of cravats. Though born to good stock and great wealth, Ferrary was practically feral.
He was born illegitimate in 1848 and brought up in Germany and France. He began collecting at the age of ten. He was a serious boy, and a sensitive one: he reportedly suffered a great deal when he heard of the humiliation inflicted upon the Austrian armies by Napoleon III at Solferino. His ancestors were also collectors, and their main interest appeared to be collecting money. His maternal grandfather, a Genoese banker, was said to have died of starvation when he deposited himself in a vault with his gold but failed to take the key to let himself out. The banker's daughter, Ferrary's mother, the Duchess of Galliera, was only given the key to her husband's private library shortly before he died, and when she entered she found a great many shelves of bound volumes containing government bonds, some £12 million in total.
And so it was, at the death of his mother in 1888, that Count Ferrary found himself suddenly able to acquire all the things he dreamed of as a child. His inheritance was $25 million. What he dreamed of was something every modern collector can never dare to dreamâthe feat of completion. With the possible exception of the King of England, no one else would ever entertain such ambitions again. Ferrary was to be thwarted in his aim: even in 1888, forty-eight years after the Penny Black, it was already impossible to collect everything. Even if you had the money, some things were just not available. But Ferrary tried.
He had several important dealers, including J. P. Moens and Pierre Mahe, the latter becoming the keeper of his collection in Paris as he travelled throughout Europe on his quest for more stamps. He desired to buy every unique and legendary rarity in the worldâthe five-cent dull-blue Boscawen Postmaster stamp; the Kiautschou five-pfennig double-printed with 5fP rather than 5Pf; the 1851 Hawaiian two-cent blue, the 1856 British Guiana one-cent black on magenta, the Swedish tre-skilling banco of 1855 (yellow, error of colour, the only known example that wasn't the intended green).
Like most collectors, Ferrary thrilled as much to the chase as the conquest. He bought them every way you can imagine and a few more besides, paying far over the odds to happy dealers. At one stage he owned four copies of the Blue Mauritius. The stamps were housed at 57 rue de Varenne, in a private wing of a palace occupied by the Austrian ambassador. His collection was rarely seen by visitors, but one who did gain entrance was Charles J. Phillips, another of Ferrary's principal dealers. He described a room covered on three sides by cupboards with shelves, the shelves containing 'stamps all mounted on strips of stout paper'; they were not in albums but in
One twopence specimen, unused, slightly damaged and repaired, followed a similar route from Bordeaux to Madame Desbois, and then to J. B. Moens. Moens sold it to Count Ferrary in 1875, for 600 francs (about £24). In 1886 Ferrary swapped the stamp with T. K. Tapling, whose collection was bequeathed to the British Museum after his death in 1891. This was the one that really caught my eye.
Tapling and Ferrary were the two giants of nineteenth-century collecting, and they couldn't have been more different. Tapling was seven years younger, educated at Harrow, a Member of Parliament, a cricketer (he played one match for the MCC), fond of cravats. Though born to good stock and great wealth, Ferrary was practically feral.
He was born illegitimate in 1848 and brought up in Germany and France. He began collecting at the age of ten. He was a serious boy, and a sensitive one: he reportedly suffered a great deal when he heard of the humiliation inflicted upon the Austrian armies by Napoleon III at Solferino. His ancestors were also collectors, and their main interest appeared to be collecting money. His maternal grandfather, a Genoese banker, was said to have died of starvation when he deposited himself in a vault with his gold but failed to take the key to let himself out. The banker's daughter, Ferrary's mother, the Duchess of Galliera, was only given the key to her husband's private library shortly before he died, and when she entered she found a great many shelves of bound volumes containing government bonds, some £12 million in total.
And so it was, at the death of his mother in 1888, that Count Ferrary found himself suddenly able to acquire all the things he dreamed of as a child. His inheritance was $25 million. What he dreamed of was something every modern collector can never dare to dreamâthe feat of completion. With the possible exception of the King of England, no one else would ever entertain such ambitions again. Ferrary was to be thwarted in his aim: even in 1888, forty-eight years after the Penny Black, it was already impossible to collect everything. Even if you had the money, some things were just not available. But Ferrary tried.
He had several important dealers, including J. P. Moens and Pierre Mahe, the latter becoming the keeper of his collection in Paris as he travelled throughout Europe on his quest for more stamps. He desired to buy every unique and legendary rarity in the worldâthe five-cent dull-blue Boscawen Postmaster stamp; the Kiautschou five-pfennig double-printed with 5fP rather than 5Pf; the 1851 Hawaiian two-cent blue, the 1856 British Guiana one-cent black on magenta, the Swedish tre-skilling banco of 1855 (yellow, error of colour, the only known example that wasn't the intended green).
Like most collectors, Ferrary thrilled as much to the chase as the conquest. He bought them every way you can imagine and a few more besides, paying far over the odds to happy dealers. At one stage he owned four copies of the Blue Mauritius. The stamps were housed at 57 rue de Varenne, in a private wing of a palace occupied by the Austrian ambassador. His collection was rarely seen by visitors, but one who did gain entrance was Charles J. Phillips, another of Ferrary's principal dealers. He described a room covered on three sides by cupboards with shelves, the shelves containing 'stamps all mounted on strips of stout paper'; they were not in albums but in
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