Originally looked upon as errors of engraving—"POST OFFICE" instead of "POST PAID"—on the sheets of what is now known to be the second issue of Mauritius, it was many years before they took their position as a rare and distinct emission; now something under thirty copies are known, and their status is firmly established.
From philatelic records we learn that the first-known copies changed hands for the merest trifle: to-day they are catalogued at £1,000 and £1,200 respectively, in used condition.
In 1894 a firm of stamp-dealers acquired a well-known collector's unused mint copies of these stamps at what would now be the very low price of £680: they went into the collection of the late Sir William Avery, and have now passed to another famous collector at the record price of £3,500 for the two.
For romance, however, nothing approaches what occurred early in 1904. A collector, visiting a friend resident in the north-west of London, mentioned his hobby to his host, who, remarking that he once collected stamps, brought out his almost-forgotten schoolboy album. Looking casually through the old collection, the guest saw, to his amazement, what proved to be the finest known unused copy of the Twopence "Post Office," purchased by its owner forty years previously for a few pence: this stamp was sold shortly afterwards at auction for £1,450, and now adorns the fine collection of Mauritius stamps owned by King George V.
The quaintly designed stamps of Nevis, printed at first direct from line-engraved plates, and subsequently from lithographic stones, show a wonderful increase in value, from a few shillings each in 1880 to three or four times the same number of pounds at the present time; then, the stamps were only just obsolete, and most collectors were satisfied with one or two single copies; now, the demand is for entire sheets of twelve varieties, or, failing these, from the not very large supplies printed, for plates "made up" from singles, pairs, and blocks, arranged in their respective proper places.
The handsome "pence" issue of New Brunswick, some of the similar stamps of Newfoundland, and the first emission of Nova Scotia, all supplied by Messrs. Perkins, Bacon & Co., those unrivalled producers of postage-stamps, were, within the memory of many collectors, obtainable at very low figures; now many of the values, notably the One Shilling, realise, especially when "mint," very high prices indeed. As an instance, it may be mentioned that a young collector of thirty years ago, submitting his stamps to a well-known expert, had a nice unused copy of the One Shilling Nova Scotia valued at 25s., the present valuation of which would be £55.
It is related, on excellent authority, that, long ago, a dealer, learning that there was a small stock of these One Shilling stamps at one of the Nova Scotia post-offices, forwarded a remittance to secure them: he was successful in his desire, but the postmaster had applied to each stamp a fine impression of the local obliterator, possibly as a concession to the then collector's presumed preference for postmarked copies.
"Sydney Views," as the stamps of the first (1850) issue of New South Wales have been, and probably always will be, known to philatelists, afford another instance of unearned increment.
Far back in the 'sixties, the period of unappreciated but now regretted opportunities for wonderful bargains, "Sydney Views" were a few pence a dozen used, and about £1 a copy if unused—whether singles, strips, or blocks did not matter then; now, postmarked copies are worth several times the old price of unused specimens; and for the unused, from £25 to £50, according to condition and absence or presence of the original gum, is not unreasonable. And yet, despite this enormous increase in value, at a recent meeting of the Royal Philatelic Society a total of 2,363 of these now scarce stamps were produced from the collections of fourteen members for purposes of study.