The story begins in 1856...
The Local Postmaster
British Guiana
When only 10% of the expected stamps for the region arrived from Great Britain, the Postmaster was forced to improvise a limited run of provisional stamps made and signed off at the local newspaper, the Royal Gazette.
Mission accomplished
The small print run worked as a stop gap and the stamps were withdrawn 8 weeks later. One-cent stamps only covered local newspaper postage rates and as a result most were destroyed shortly after use.
1873
The one that got away
The 1c Magenta would have been forgotten if it were not for Vernon Vaughan, a 12-year-old Scottish boy, who found one odd stamp among his uncle's papers in 1873.
The journey begins...
The budding philatelist soon sold it for six shillings to Neil Ross McKinnon, who sent his collection to the UK for sale.
And so began the decades-long, cross-continental journey of the 1c Magenta.