Finished reading THE ONE-CENT MAGENTA by James Barron.
In 1873 a white British Guiana schoolboy Louis Vernon Vaughan found a locally printed dark red postage stamp on an old newspaper wrapper in his uncle's abandoned house. What later became renowned as the One-Cent Magenta and the world's rarest stamp was first issued by the British Guiana Post Office in 1856.
Vaughan, a stamp collector, was not impressed with the condition of that particular stamp but kept it in his album until one in better shape turned up. Five years passed and, needing money to buy an attractive set of stamps, Vaughan sold the One-Cent Magenta to a much older philatelist for 6 shillings or BG$1.44. The buyer was Neil Ross McKinnon, first Mayor of New Amsterdam.
A few months later McKinnon sold the One-Cent Magenta to a Scottish stamp dealer named Thomas Ridpath for £120, ie 400 times the amount he had paid for it.
Over the years that little piece of paper from Guyana increased exponentially in value and became the Holy Grail for serious philatelists and rich investors. At its last auction 5 years ago the One-Cent Magenta was acquired for US$9.5 million by American shoes designer Stuart Weitzman.
This book about the continuing odyssey of that 163-year-old British Guiana postage stamp gripped my attention from beginning to end.
