Hobbies: Mr. Barnard’s Slip

The Governor’s wife was giving a fancy-dress ball, and she decided that the invitations should go out bearing the latest thing—postage stamps. The year was 1847, and stamps had just been authorized for the Indian Ocean colony of Mauritius, which her husband administered. So she asked that old, half-blind Mr. Barnard, the island’s watchmaker, jeweler and amateur engraver, finish the island’s first stamps as soon as possible.

On a small copper plate such as might be used to engrave a visiting card, Mr. Barnard cut a pretty profile of the young Queen Victoria, but instead of engraving “Post Paid” along one edge of the stamp,* he made it “Post Office.”

Today only 26 stamps are known to exist of that first issue of 500 bearing Mr. Barnard’s inconsequential slip, which made a philatelic byword out of the phrase “Post Office Mauritius.” The one-and twopenny samples that were up for auction last week by the London firm of Robson Lowe, Ltd. had left Mauritius on a letter to a wine merchant in Bordeaux (it took 85 days to get there). As well as being rare, they were in excellent condition. So when the bidding reached £27,500, Raymond H. Weill, a New Orleans dealer, made his only bid—£28,000. It was the highest price ever offered for a philatelic item, and nobody chose to go higher. The hammer fell, and Mr. Weill leaned across to a fellow American. “How much is £28,000 in dollars?” he asked. Answer: $78,400.

Raymond Weill’s stamp store in New Orleans’ French Quarter, which he runs with his brother, is far from being one of the largest in the U.S., but Dealer Weill is no novice at big-time bidding. Last May he paid $41,000 for a Hawaiian “Missionary” two-center of 1851, which was the highest price ever paid for a single postage stamp at a public auction. Only instance when this price was surpassed was in 1940, when an 1856 British Guiana one-center, brought $45,000 at a private sale.

Fellow philatelists speculated that he may have been acting for a private collector in making his record bid. Bachelor Weill (whose own hobby is collecting rare gold coins and porcelain birds) was noncommittal. “We’re just going to put it on the shelf and wait for a buyer,” he said.

* Before the introduction of the adhesive stamp, the recipient had to pay the postage.