One Cent Magenta Read online

  29

  The stamp collection is owned personally Author interview with Michael Sefi, March 30, 2016.

  30

  estimated in 2015 Camilla Tominey, “The Queen is worth £300 million but cash is tied up in art and … stamps,” Sunday Express, March 8, 2015; David McClure, Royal Legacy: How the Royal Family Have Made, Spent and Passed on Their Wealth (London: Thistle Press, 2015).

  30

  had never seen the actual one-cent Author interview with Michael Sefi, March 30, 2016.

  31

  ”And, I think, satisfying [Sefi’] own curiosity” Author interview with David N. Redden, June 23, 2015.

  32

  “Theres always something” Interview with Michael Sefi, June 22, 2015.

  32

  he tamped them down Interview with Michael Sefi, March 30, 2016.

  32

  The Expert Committees command post Author visit to Royal Philatelic Society London, March 12, 2015.

  34

  The technology was perfected Author interview with David Tobin of Foster + Freeman, June 13, 2015.

  36

  “It was described in Bacon as rubbed” Author interview with Christopher G. Harman, March 12, 2015.

  36

  The mention of the rubbing Author interview with Matthew Healey, March 3, 2015.

  38

  His hand shook Author interview with Peter Lister, March 12, 2015.

  38

  “Here’s our patient” This section is based on author observations on the trip to National Postal Museum on April 17, 2014, and on later conversations with Redden, Odenweller, and Thomas M. Lera.

  41

  Lera, writing in a scientific journal Thomas M. Lera, Winton M. Blount Postal History Symposia: Select Papers, 2010—2011 (Washington: Smithsonian Institutional Scholarly Press, 2012), 74—75.

  43

  “The cunning of Wilson” “Master Auctioneer,” Time, April 20, 1962, 76.

  43

  Wilson turned a sale of post-impressionist paintings Carol Vogel, “Theater in the Salesroom,” New York Times Book Review, July 5, 1998, Section 7, 17.

  45

  “This is like a horse race” Author interview with David N. Red den, June 17, 2014.

  45

  But actually, it was over This section is based on author observations before, during, and immediately after the sale on June 17, 2014.

  47

  uninspiring wording Holland Cotter, “On the Scene: ‘The Contemporaries,’ ‘Painting Now’ and More,” New York Times Book Review, June 25, 2015, BR18.

  47

  Sotheby’s had prequalified Author interview with David N. Redden, August 3, 2015.

  3. 1856: Printed, Sold, and Forgotten

  49

  the Post Office Mauritius stamps See Helen Morgan, Blue Mauritius: The Hunt for the World’s Most Valuable Stamps (London: Atlantic Books, 2009).

  49

  the Inverted Jenny stamps See George Amick, The Inverted Jenny: Money, Mystery, Mania (Sidney, Ohio: Amos Press, 1986).

  49

  One of the places Columbus missed Daniel J. Boorstin, The Discoverers (New York: Random House, 1983), 653.

  50

  Vespucci in 1499 Charles B. Parmer, West Indian Odyssey: The Complete Guide to the Islands of the Caribbean (New York: Dodge Publishing Company, 1937), 167.

  50

  A series of papal bulls W. Adolphe Roberts, Lands of the Inner Sea: The West Indies and Bermuda (New York: Coward-McCann, 1948), 159; Boorstin, 248.

  51

  Guiana “hath more quantity of gold” Sir Walter Raleigh, The Discoverie of the Large, Rich and Bewtiful Empire of Guiana, with a Relation of the Great and Golden Citie of Manoa (which the Spaniards call El Dorado) and the Provinces of Emeria, Arromaia,Amapaia and other Countries, with their rivers adjoining, https://legacy.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1595raleigh-guiana.asp.

  51

  the Pilgrims weighed pointing the Mayflower Joshua R. Hyles, Guiana and the Shadows of Empire: Colonial and Cultural Negotiations at the Edge of the World (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2013), 31. Some historians credit other early accounts with swaying the Pilgrims who favored going to Guiana. See, for example, Roland Greene Usher, The Pilgrims and Their History (New York: Macmillan, 1918), 47.

  51

  Back in London after a huge Paul Halsall, Modern History Source- book—Sir Walter Raleigh (1554—1618): The Discovery of Guiana, https://legacy.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1595raleigh-guiana.asp

  51

  in what they called Novo Zeelandia James Rodway, History of British Guiana, Volume 1 (Georgetown, Demerara: J. Thomson, 1891), 5.

  51

  “there were many advantages” Ibid., 5.

  52

  Finally the British Parmer, West Indian Odyssey, 168.

  52

  “The museum is somewhat superior” Roberts, Lands of the Inner Sea, 156.

  52

  “All first-class passengers” Evelyn Waugh, Ninety-Two Days (New York: Penguin Books, 1954), 20.

  53

  He had already “[raced]” James R. Kincaid, “250 Words Every Fifteen Minutes,” New York Times Book Review, December 22, 1991, 1.

  53

  “I think Saxony ” Anthony Trollope, An Autobiography of Anthony Trollope (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1912), 43.

  54

  “incarnate gale of wind” Attributed to Wilkie Collins in Kincaid, New York Times Book Review, December 22, 1991, 1.

  54

  “There never was a land” Anthony Trollope, The West Indies and the Spanish Main (London: Chapman and Hall, 1859), 169, 170.

  54

  “among the mosquitoes!” Ibid., 181.

  55

  “philatelic facts, which are usually dry” Morgan, Blue Mauritius: The Hunt for the World’s Most Valuable Stamps, 31—40.

  55

  steamships picked up mail James Rodway, The Post Office in British Guiana Before 1860, booklet published in 1890, 7.

  56

  “let out the Office” The British Guiana: The World’s Most Famous Stamp (Sotheby’s pre-auction catalogue, 2014), 15; Townsend and Howe, 188.

  57

  “felt exploited by the Portuguese” George K. Danns, Domination and Power in Guyana: A Study of the Police in a Third World Context (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Press, 1982), 21.

  57

  “Nobody expected any trouble” V.O. Chan, “The Riots of 1856 in British Guiana,” Caribbean Quarterly, March 1970, 40.

  58

  The little newspaper Townsend and Howe, 44.

  59

  misspelled as ”Patimus” The Stamp-Collector’s Magazine, March 1, 1870, 46.

  59

  despite tussles The British Guiana: The World’s Most Famous Stamp (Sotheby’s pre-auction catalogue, 2014), 16.

  59

  Dalton’s son took over Townsend and Howe, 189.

  60

  In a memoir Benjamin Penhallow Shillaber, “Experiences During Many Years,” in The New England Magazine, July 1893, 619.

  60

  Shillaber liked one of the Gazette’s owners Ibid., 622.

  61

  the Gazette carried no such column The British Guiana: The World’s Most Famous Stamp (Sotheby’s pre-auction catalogue, 2014), 23.

  61

  probably ran off sheets of four Townsend and Howe, 48.

  61

  ”Mr. Wight is still alive” The Postage Stamps, Envelopes, Wrappers, Post Cards and Telegraph Stamps of the British Colonies in the West Indies, Together With British Honduras and the Colonies in South America (London: Philatelic Society, London, 1891), 39.

  4. 1873: Found by a Twelve-Year-Old

  63

  “The worst stamp swap” Viola Ilma, Funk & Wagnalls Guide to the World of Stamp Collecting (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1978), 141.

  63

  grew up to be a tax collector The Official Gazette of British. Guiana, Volume 27 (1908), 223.
/>   63

  “was always referred to” Author interview with Carrie Hunter, December 14, 2015.

  63

  Andrew Hunter came from a line Author interviews with C. Ian C. Wishart, December 10, 2015, and with Carrie Hunter, December 14, 2015.

  63

  “a whole lot of old family letters” Quoted in Gerardine van Urk, “‘World’s Rarest Stamp on View,” New York Times, May 18, 1947, Section 2, 13.

  64

  “condition … would not be tolerated” L.N. and Maurice Williams, Rare Stamps (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1967), 11.

  64

  “I was quite certain” Quoted in The (Melbourne) Argus, July 21, 1934, 7.

  64

  The dealer was Alfred Smith Bertram Tapscott Knight Smith, How to Collect Postage Stamps (London: G. Bell and Sons, 1907), 157. See also Stamp Collector, May 25, 1903, 1.

  65

  The Timbre-Poste would later provide W.A. Townsend and F.G. Howe, The Postage Stamps and Postal History of British Guiana (London: Royal Philatelic Society London, 1970), 46.

  65

  The Persian emperor Mauritz Hallgren, All About Stamps (New York: Knopf, 1940), 17.

  66

  Centuries later Charlemagne Daniel B. Schneider, “F.Y.I.: Special Deliverers,” New York Times, June 3, 2001, Section 14, 2.

  66

  kings and bishops Carl H. Scheele, A Short History of the Mail Service (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1970), 30; F. George Kay, Royal Mail: The Story of the Posts in England from the Time of Edward IV to the Present Day (London: Rockliff, 1951), 4.

  66

  fashioned a monopoly Hallgren, All About Stamps, 23.

  67

  A seventeenth-century entrepreneur “The Story of the First Postage Stamp,” Smithsonian, July 19, 2013, http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-story-of-the-first-postage-stamp.

  67

  James E. Casey Wolfgang Saxon, “James E. Casey Is Dead at 95; Started United Parcel Service,” New York Times, June 7, 1983, B8.

  67

  ”Just a penny” Duncan Campbell-Smith, Masters of the Post: The Authorised History of the Royal Mail (London: Penguin UK, 2011), 60.

  68

  The credit apparently goes F. George Kay, Royal Mail, 163.

  69

  Mail sent through Dockwra’s system Ibid., 164.

  70

  ”unpleasant” Laurin Zilliacus, Mail for the World (New York: John Day, 1953), 153.

  71

  Smithsonian magasines website speculated “The Story of the First Postage Stamp,” Smithsonian, July 19, 2013, http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-story-of-the-first-postage-stamp.

  71

  The philatelist David Beech Author interview with David Beech, March 29, 2016.

  71

  “Mr. Place, a prominent citisen” Zilliacus, Mailfor the World, 157.

  72

  on delivery was “an important incentive” Ian Jack, “The Rise and Fall of a Great British Institution,” The Guardian, November 22, 2011, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/nov/22/masters -post-duncan-campbell-smith-review.

  73

  quoted the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Letters, Conversations and Recollections of S.T. Coleridge, Volume 2 (London: Edward Moxon, 1836), 114.

  74

  complained that “hundreds, if not thousands” Quoted in Eleanor C. Smyth, Sir Rowland Hill: The Story of a Great Reform—As Told by His Daughter (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1907), 57.

  74

  detailed the ciphers Ibid., 58.

  74

  Franking was available Matthew F. Glassman, Franking Privilege: Historical Development and Options for Change (Washington: Congressional Research Service, April 2015), 2. See also Smyth, Sir Rowland Hill, 42—43.

  75

  complained that ”members of thefavoured classes” Smyth, Sir Row land Hill, 43.

  75

  mail “refused,, mis-sent or redirected” Ibid., 62.

  76

  friends in Parliament Hallgren, All About Stamps, 51.

  76

  Too foreign to the habits Zilliacus, Mail for the World, 161.

  77

  As the historian F. George Kay Kay, Royal Mail, 168.

  77

  “The lovely portrait” Ibid., 170.

  80

  Mackay wrote James Mackay, The Guinness Book of Stamps: Facts and Feats (Enfield, England: Guinness Superlatives, 1982), 216.

  80

  Or perhaps “timbrophily” Stephen Satchell and J.F.W. Auld, “Collecting and Investing in Stamps,” in Satchell, ed., Collectible Investments for the High Net Worth Investor (Oxford: Academic Press, 2009), 215.

  81

  Yahoo reported Vindu Goel and Joe Drape, “Yahoo Makes a Big Entrance Into Fantasy Sports Betting,” New York Times, July 8, 2015, B1.

  81

  “appeared to be a bad specimen” Quoted in Bertram W.H. Poole, “British Guiana 1¢ of 1856,” Mekeel’s Weekly, July 15, 1911.

  82

  Vaughan ”rose to the top” W.A. Townsend and F.G. Howe, Postage Stamps and Postal History of British Guiana (London: Royal Philatelic Society London, 1970), 48.

  83

  The lack of an apostrophe “Postage Stamp Design Errors” (website), http://topicsonstamps.info/errors/britishguiana.htm.

  83

  “Devoted philatelists” Simon Garfield, The Error World: An Affair with Stamps (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008), 4.

  83

  “Do we collect in order to touch” John Bryant, “Stamp and Coin Collecting,” in M. Thomas Inge (ed.), Handbook of American Popular Culture, 2nd ed. (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989), 1351.

  84

  ”Of an evening” Inge (ed.), Handbook of American Popular Culture, xiii.

  84

  Mackay claimed Mackay, Guinness Book of Stamps, author bio, inside cover.

  84

  ”It’s an obsession ” Author conversation with Joseph Hackmey at Royal Philatelic Society London, March 12, 2015.

  84

  For $1.1 million ”Most Expensive Newspaper Copy,” World Records Academy, http://www.worldrecordacademy.com/collections/most_expensive_newspaper_copy-Romanian_newspaper_sets_world_record_80272.htm.

  85

  the dentist who collected Michael Kimmelman, “Museums Built on the Passion to Collect … Anything,” New York Times, September 4, 1998, E27.

  86

  ”Collecting fills a hole in a life” Garfield, The Error World: An Affair with Stamps, 2.

  5. 1878: Glasgow and London

  88

  ”among private letters” Arthur D. Ferguson, “The Rarities and Early Issues of British Guiana. The Romance of Their Discovery and Rise in Value,” British Guiana Philatelic Journal, December 1921, 4.

  89

  A middle-aged London barrister Who Was Who in Philately (London: Association of British Philatelic Societies Limited), http://www.abps.org.uk/Home/Who_Was_Who/index.xalter#H.

  89

  It was the world’s first Ibid., http://www.abps.org.uk/Home/Who_Was_Who/index.xalter#S.

  89

  a large library Kirstyn Leuner, “Francis John Stainforth: A Biographical Sketch,” (Boulder, Colorado: CU-Boulder University Libraries Special Collections, 2014), http://libpress.colorado.edu/stainforth/2014/12/14/francis-john-stainforth-a-biographical-sketch/.

  89

  plays and poems by women Stainforth, Francis John, Catalogue of the library of female authors of the Rev. J. Fr. Stainforth. Collection of the University of Colorado Boulder, http://ucblibraries.colorado.edu/specialcollections/collections/wprp/290caption.htm.

  89

  Historians of philately Who Was Who in Philately, http://www.abps.org.uk/Home/Who_Was_Who/index.xalter#S.

  90

  a church asked L.N. and Maurice Williams, Rare Stamps (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1967), 14.

  93

  “its ponderous monographs�
�� Fred J. Melville, “Edward Loines Pemberton—A Record of the Philatelic Activities of the Most Brilliant of the Pioneer Philatelists,” Philatelic Journal of Great Britain, October 1922, 176.

  94

  “mastered every minute peculiarity” “Edward Loines Pemberton,” The Philatelic Record, February 1879, 2.

  94

  the very first stamp auction Melville, Philatelic Journal of Great Britain, 186, 188.

  94

  “many others who were his seniors” “In Memoriam,” The Philatelic Record, February 1879, 2.

  94

  His Journal promised Advertisement in Edward L. Pemberton, The Stamp Collector’s Handbook (Dawlish: James R. Grant, and Plymouth: Stanley Gibbons, 1874).

  94

  “Ship with motto” Edward L. Pemberton, The Stamp Collector’s Handbook, 16.

  95