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Postage Stamp Collecting, or Philately: Mauritius
The highest priced postage stamps were the once rare Pony Expresses (see page 841), one of which cost 4 dollars (16s. 8d.) The 2 dollar one ranks next; then the five shilling of New South Wales, the Mauritius, and our own; the 96 cents of Hong Kong, the 8 reales of Mexico, the 90 cents of the United States, the 1 scudo of Rome, and the 25 piastres of Turkey. The Ceylons are the most numerous in varieties of value, having no fewer than thirteen, from one halfpenny to two shillings. From four to six is the average number of monetary denominations for the same country. Some have more, as Hong Kong, which counts ten. The United States have the same number, besides four additional values in envelopes. New South Wales has eight, and Victoria nine values. France has nine at present, but a higher priced stamp is announced. Liberia, Turk's Island, and British Honduras have only three; Grenada, Nicaragua, British Columbia, and Antigua, issue but two; and Vancouver's Island, Malta, Sierra Leone, and Corrientes, only one. The last-named locality, being a small province of the Argentine Republic, has issued the same die for two several values. It was originally marked un real, but this was subsequently erased, no designation of value appearing. Three centavos was then its price. It is impressed in black, on blue, as well as green paper. Like the New Caledonian, it was printed in sheets from a single block, each impression slightly differing.
This is one of the few exceptions to the rule of postage stamps bearing a facial value. The earlier issues of the Mauritius, Trinidad, and Barbadoes partake of the same defect, being distinguishable by colour only. The Ionian Islanders were in a like category: but the sole existing specimens of this inconvenience are the halfpenny and penny Barbadians, and the whole set of St. Lucias.
The result of this is, that the values of more than one of the early stamps of the Mauritius are still a subject of debate among some erudite philatelists. One of these stamps is sometimes found endorsed with "eightpence" in black letters, another with "fourpence." This clumsy method is even yet being adopted in a few instances, we suppose to save the expense of a new plate. The original six-penny of St. Helena is printed in three different colours besides its own blue, and does duty in green, carmine, and red, cruelly tattooed with printed characters according to the stated value. The nine-penny of South Australia, doffing its modest hue for a bright orange, hand-stamped with black, is worth a penny more than heretofore. In like manner, the Italian government, wishing to put the screw on its faithful subjects, raised the tariff on home letters from 15 to 20 centesimi, and barred out the original value. The provisional East Indian may be joined to this uncomely group of disfigured identities, as also the newly emitted set for Singapore. The impressions of Nevis; those now current of the Cape of Good Hope; and what are termed the Sydney stamps of New South Wales, are elegantly symbolical of their respective localities.
The adhesives of British Columbia, Sierra Leone, and British Honduras, claim a very high rank for elegance of design and correctness of execution among our colonials. The extinct shilling stamp of Victoria may worthily dispute with its lately superseded sixpenny the unenviable distinction of ugliness. Excluding the railway stamps, and the United States newspaper labels, Liberia produces the largest stamps; Mecklenberg Schwerin and Brunswick the smallest. The latter two countries present the singularity of allowing the four small stamps to be used singly or in combination.
The inscriptions on stamps being of course in the language of their native country, many impressions necessarily bear a particularly quaint appearance; as those of Egypt, Turkey, Cashmeer, Shanghai, Poland, Moldavia (see page 853), and Servia (see p. 844). The early emission of the Argentine Confederation is also an oddity.
The shapes of postage stamps present but little variation; a very large majority being more or less unequally sided rectangles. Few are perfectly square. The set of Bergedorf, and the disused Danish and Thurn and Taxis adhesives are instances, the former showing the further peculiarity of different sizes in regular gradation according to value. The impressions run sometimes on upright, sometimes on oblong rectangles. The narrowest of the latter is one of those of Wells, Fargo, and Co.; of the former, a very rare English essay, too elaborate for description.
Some few are octagonal, more or less irregular; some oval; some perfectly round; some indescribable, as the one-and-ninepenny Ceylon; and the ninepenny envelope of the Mauritius. The earlier emissions of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were printed in such a wav as to render the stamp lozenge-shaped. A small minority are triangular; the superseded stamps of the Cape of Good Hope, a solitary type of Newfoundland, and one of New Granada, are the only ones we can recollect ever seeing, except a black Austrian newspaper adhesive. The Langtou local is unique in form.
Many stamps have been issued exclusively for newspapers, feuilletons, and printed matter in general, such as some Austrian and Venetian impressions. The B. G. and tassa gazzette of Modena, the 6 c. and 9 centesimi of Parma, and others, were of like nature; as are the lower priced French, Italians, and Belgians. That of Frankfort is not adhesive, but hand-stamped, like those on our own newspapers, and is by some considered inadmissible in strictly postal collections.
The returned letter stamps must not pass unmentioned. That of Wartemberg was long "alone in its glory;" but Munich, Augsburg, Nuremberg, and other Bavarian cities, have lately adopted them. Those forming the seal on returned letters in our own country are collected by some amateurs.
The enormous accumulation of proofs and essays, all which are ignored by many philatelists, are not to be lightly rejected. The former are certainly articles de luxe or fantaisie, being simply veritable stamps printed in abnormal colours, as some of the United States, &c. Of the latter are three sorts--those by authorisation; those proposed by enterprising individuals to various governments; and those invented for sale to entrap the unwary. The best, as in the case of England, were not always chosen; look at the essay of Pellas the Genoese, and admire Italian discrimination--if you can. The Sicilian, on the other hand, is indubitably inferior to the adopted design, In the centre lies the audacious offspring of the Fenian rebellion. Several essays proposed for Governments which have not yet instituted the postage stamp system, are surpassingly beautiful in device and execution. Those by M. Riester, of Paris, are particularly elegant, Bolivia for example. The Poisson d'Avril (April Fool) stamp is a curiosity in philatelic lore; it was gravely chronicled as emanating from Moresnet, and deceived the very knowing ones. (See cut at foot of next page.) The longest reign in postal annals is twelve years; the defunct Dutch having lasted that period. Of the Spanish sets only two have outlived a twelvemonth unchanged. The 1 franc of the French empire, and the first issue of Schleswig-Holstein (see p. 843), were current rather more, the 25 centimes of the Empire and the Italian (represented below) less than a year. The 1/2 tornese, Neapolitan arms, and the same transmogrified into the Cross of Savoy, endured each about a month. The 1/2 schilling violet, and 3 sch. Rose of Bergedorf, were a nine days' wonder.
Among the notabilities of a choice postage-stamp collection may be chronicled the Connel essay. A New Brunswick postmaster of that name took the liberty of having his own physiognomy transferred to a sheet of postage stamps;--the result was his resignation. The tenpenny above depicted is unique, and was long supposed to be from Van Dieman's Land; but we rather believe it an English essay.
The space allowed us compels an abrupt conclusion. We had intended touching on the eight various distinct modes of perforation, besides variations; and the distinguishing watermarks of various issues. We should also have liked to describe the amusing and exciting humours of 'Change, which many of our readers may remember witnessing in Lombard Street and its neighbourhood, or in the gardens of the Luxembourg aud the Tuileries in Paris, during the early days of stamp-collecting; but we trust enough has been written to excite the interest of many who have purchased this volume on other accounts, yet may thus be induced to become votaries to the interesting and instructive pursuit of Philately.