MAKING HIS MARK ON PHILATELY
What does a museum do when the appearance of the world’s most expensive stamp changes? The Museum of Philately’s Devlan Kruck reacts to the return of the one-cent magenta… and reflects on the subtle marking added by its most recent owner
One of the benefits of a virtual museum is the ability, or more precisely agility, to adapt to change and quickly make revisions at the click of a button, thus ensuring the most up-to-date records are on display. Given the social media age we live in these days it has never been more important. With this in mind, it no doubt won’t have escaped anyone’s notice in the world of philately that the current world’s most expensive stamp, the British Guiana One-cent Magenta, is being auctioned on 8 June 2021.
Now under normal circumstances that wouldn’t mean we at the Museum of Philately would need to do anything to the stamp entry until after a sale when we would update the price achieved and ownership details. However, something came to light at the announcement of this exciting philatelic news which alters the
appearance of the stamp to the degree that it was important, if not informative, to revise the record, even before the auctioneers have opened the bidding.
And it’s not the front of the stamp but the back that has changed quite noticeably with the addition of a stiletto shoe outline and the initials ‘SW’ pencilled upon the reverse. The current owner is Stuart Weitzman, a shoe designer to Hollywood stars such as Taylor Swift and Beyoncé, which explains his distinctive scribble. Weitzman also owns the 1918 24c Unique Plate Block of Inverted Jennys, which is being auctioned on the same day.
Whilst the shoe has caused quite a stir, the reality is this isn’t anything unusual; the shoe designer is just following in the footsteps of seven others before him who have done the same over the last 125 years. Admittedly the stiletto is quite a bold mark of ownership and in some quarters is considered to be a fashion statement, but in others a piece of artefact vandalism.
Regardless of which camp you are in, from an aesthetic perspective we could see that the back of the stamp had been significantly altered, so we replaced the reverse scan with the latest image published by Sotheby’s.
This is an ideal opportunity to point out who else has left their mark on this famous stamp, starting with the shoe magnate and going back to the first owner, Count Ferrary. And note we have indicated who used pencil and who used the more abrasive ink. The latter is undoubtedly more intrusive to the stamp than the former, for obvious reasons. Stuart Weitzman. Outline of a stiletto shoes with ‘SW’ initials, pencil
John Eleuthère du Pont. J.E.D.P initials, pencil
Irwin Weinberg & Associates (who took it on a world tour). ‘IW’ initials, pencil
Frederick T. Small. Comet, ink stamp
Finbar Kenny. ‘FK’ (Macy’s stamps who brokered the sale to F. Small), pencil
Ann Hind. Seventeen point star (over the top of her husband’s mark), ink stamp
Arthur Hind. Four-leaf clover (under wife’s), ink stamp
Count Ferrary. Circled trefoil (two marks one faint), ink stamp
If you’re wondering why Mrs Hind deliberately put her star over her husband’s four leaf clover, it is because when Arthur Hind died he expressly wrote Mrs Hind out of the stamp collection and crucially the proceeds which would come from the sale of the One-cent Magenta. However, she contested the will, and eventually won the case. When she had the stamp back in her possession, and before selling, she made a point of attempting to rid the reverse of his mark.
Who said the back of a stamp was boring? The reverse of this one is fast becoming more interesting than the front. And finally, if the stamp in question sells to a rich Hollywood designer of handbags, we might, in time, get a bag to go with our shoe. Then we could really say with some confidence that stamps are fashionable.