A Mauritian Red Penny

The Mauritius Post Office postage stamps are amongst the rarest and most valuable stamps in the world. They are also known as the Blue Penny and the Red Penny. The Republic of Mauritius is an island country in the southwest Indian Ocean, about 900 km east of Madagascar. ... This 1974 stamp from Japan depicts a Class 8620 steam locomotive. ...

Their value is due to two factors — they were the first stamps of the British Empire to be produced outside the United Kingdom and in their initial issue were printed with the wrong wording. They are therefore even rarer than they would have been had they been printed correctly.

Two stamps were issued, a red one penny (1d) and a blue two penny (2d). 1500 of each were issued from the first print run on 20 September 1847, many of which were used on invitations sent out by the Mauritian Governor's wife for a ball which she was holding that weekend. September 20 is the 263rd day of the year (264th in leap years). ... Events January January 4 - Samuel Colt sells his first revolver pistol to the United States government. ...

The quirk of these stamps was that they had "Post Office" rather than the more conventional "Post Paid" printed on the side. Later print runs had "Post Paid" and any existing stamps from the original run can therefore easily be identified and authenticated. There is a traditional story which seeks to explain why the stamps were incorrectly worded, which has recently been challenged by philatelists. Close examination of the Penny Red, left, reveals a 148 in the margin, indicating that it was printed with plate #148. ...

The few surviving stamps are mainly in the hands of private collectors but they are on public display in the British Library in London, including the envelope of an original invitation to the Governor's ball complete with stamp. British Library main building, London The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and one of the worlds largest research libraries, holding over 150 million items and adding some 3 million every year. ... London — containing the City of London — is the capital of the United Kingdom and of England and a major world city. With over seven million inhabitants (Londoners) in Greater London area, it is amongst the most densely populated areas in Western Europe. ...

Tradition

The traditional view can be seen in any stamp reference book of the 1920s and 1930s such as Fabulous stamps, written by John Nicklin in 1939 or Les Timbres-Post de l'Île Maurice written by Georges Brunel in 1928. Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century Decades: 1870s 1880s 1890s 1900s 1910s - 1920s - 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s Years: 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 Referred to as the Roaring 20s. ... Events and trends Technology Jet engine invented Science Nuclear fission discovered by Otto Hahn, Lise Meitner and Fritz Strassmann Pluto, the ninth planet from the Sun, is discovered by Clyde Tombaugh British biologist Arthur Tansley coins term ecosystem War, peace and politics Socialists proclaim The death of Capitalism Rise to...

This held that the man who produced the stamps, Joseph Barnard, was a half-blind watchmaker and an old man who absent-mindedly forgot what he was supposed to print on the stamps. On his way from his shop to visit the postmaster, a Mr Brownrigg, he passed a post office with a sign hanging above it. This provided the necessary jog to his memory and he returned to his work and finished engraving the plates for the stamps, substituting "Post Office" for "Post Paid".

Revision

This is an entertaining story but more recent research by Peter Ibbotson in The Barnard myth and Harold Adolphe and Raymond d'Unienville in The life and death of Joseph Osmond Barnard (The London Philatelist, vol 83, pp 263–265 December 1974) have shown that it is probably just a legend.

As Adolphe and d'Unienville say, "It is much more likely that Barnard used 'Post Office' because this was, and still is, the legal denomination of the government department concerned". The plates were approved and the stamps issued without any fuss at the time.

Joseph Barnard was an Englishman of Jewish descent from Portsmouth who arrived in Mauritius in 1838 as a stowaway, thrown off a commercial vessel bound for Sydney. He was not a watch-maker, although he may have turned his hand to watch repairs, not half-blind, and certainly not old — he was born in 1816 and was therefore 31 years old when he printed the stamps in 1847. The word Jew ( Hebrew: יהודי) is used in a wide number of ways, but generally refers to a follower of the Jewish faith, a child of a Jewish mother, or someone of Jewish descent with a connection to Jewish culture or ethnicity and often a combination of these attributes. ... This article is about the English city of Portsmouth. ... 1838 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... This is about the city of Sydney in Australia. ... Events March 25 - Friedrich Karl Ludwig, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Beck dies and is succeeded by the later Friedrich Wilhelm, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, his son and founder of the Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg. ... Events January January 4 - Samuel Colt sells his first revolver pistol to the United States government. ...