Bordeaux letter

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Bordeaux letter" with both Mauritius. ( Moens No. XXI and XXII)

The Bordeaux-letter was to 17 June 2014, the most expensive philatelic collectible of the world, surpassed only by the British Guiana 1 ¢ magenta . It is a folded letter with a blue and a red Mauritius . It is not only the valuable stamps that make this letter philatelically interesting, but also the postmarks, four of which are postmarks on the back of various stations along the route. The stamps are canceled with a "Penny Post" rectangular stamp . There is also a “Mauritius Post Office” double-circle stamp from October 4, 1847 on the back. The recipient of the letter was the “Messieurs Ducan & Lurguie” in Bordeaux .

history

The wine merchant Edward Francis from Port Louis , the capital of Mauritius , sent the letter to his supplier in Bordeaux to confirm receipt of 48 barrels of wine. The letter was sent on October 4, 1847 and arrived in Bordeaux on December 28, 1847 after 85 days with stops in England , Boulogne and Paris . 1902 a student in the archives of the wine shop poked it up and sold it in 1903 for 1600  GBP (now about 193,100 euros ). The boy had learned about the rare stamps through a series of articles on these stamps from Théophile Lemaire , editor of the French philatelic magazine Le Philatélist Français . When he told his mother about it, she remembered that her late husband had done business with Mauritius; she then allowed her son to search company correspondence. The boy also found a letter with a blue Mauritius ( Moens No. XXIII). This second letter is exhibited today in the Museum for Communication in Berlin .

The Bordeaux letter came from Théophile Lemaire, Brunet l'Argentière, Alfred F. Lichtenstein 1917, Arthur Hind 1922, Maurice Burrus 1934, Raymond H. Weill and other owners to the Japanese industrialist Kanai Hiroyuki in 1971 . He sold the folded letter in 1988 through the auction house David Feldman , Geneva . On November 3, 1993, the letter went to an unnamed bidder from Singapore at auction for 6.125 million Swiss francs (around 5.203 million euros today ) .

Moens No. I and II at the 1985 Jakubek auction

There was another letter with the same colored franking with the Moens numbers I and II that Madame Borchard discovered. However, the stamps were replaced by her in 1864 and she exchanged them for two stamps from Montevideo .

literature

  • Jan Billion, David Feldman, Andreas Hahn: The biographies of all Mauritius Post Office stamps. In: Lieselotte Kugler, Andreas Hahn (Ed.): The Blue Mauritius. The meeting of the queens in Berlin. A publication by the Museum Foundation Post and Telecommunications , Berlin 2011, exhibition catalog in German and English, ISBN 978-3-9813202-1-3 , p. 194 ff.
  • Helen Morgan: Blue Mauritius - The Hunt for the world's most valuable stamps . Atlantic Books, London 2009, ISBN 978-1-84354-436-4 , pp. 105 ff
  • Gibbons Stamp Monthly June 1994, pp. 29-31
  • 150 years of fascination with Mauritius - the crown jewel of philately . Borek, Braunschweig 1998
  • Wolfgang Jakubek: The 10 Million Euro Legend: The Crown Jewel of Philately. In: Briefmarkenspiegel , May 2008, p. 79

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Lieselotte Kugler, Andreas Hahn (ed.): The Blue Mauritius. The meeting of the queens in Berlin , page 225 f.
  2. ↑ Helen Morgan: Blue Mauritius - The Hunt for the world's most valuable stamps . Atlantic Books, London 2009, ISBN 978-1-84354-436-4 , page 109
  3. ↑ a b blau-mauritius.de about the Post Office Mauritius stamps, accessed May 26, 2012
  4. ↑ Highlights of the exhibition: The Blue Mauritius. The meeting of the queens in Berlin . ( Memento of October 26, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Museum for Communication Berlin , accessed July 31, 2011
  5. ↑ 150 years of fascination with Mauritius - the crown jewel of philately . Borek, Braunschweig 1998, pp. 10-11
  6. ↑ 150 years of fascination with Mauritius - the crown jewel of philately . Borek, Braunschweig 1998, p. 8
  7. ↑ Michael Harrison: "Post Office" Mauritius, 1847: The Tale of Two Stamps . Stamp Collecting Ltd. (Philatelic Publishers), London 1947, p. 42 f
  8. ↑ Helen Morgan: Blue Mauritius - The Hunt for the world's most valuable stamps . Atlantic Books, London 2009, ISBN 978-1-84354-436-4 , p. 107
  9. ↑ a b 150 Years of Fascination Mauritius - The Crown Jewel of Philately , Borek Braunschweig 1998, p. 13
  10. ↑ a b Lieselotte Kugler, Andreas Hahn (Ed.): The Blue Mauritius. The meeting of the queens in Berlin. P. 195.
  11. ↑ a b Moens No. I and II helenmorgan.net (English), accessed on July 20, 2012