“Red Mauritius” has changed the owner

In the German Ludwigsburg on Saturday morning the most famous and rarest brand “Red Mauritius” was sold at auction…For 8.1 million euros.This is reported by the German news agency DPA.

The lot, called 1847 Mauritius 1d Ball Cover, was put up by a private owner with a starting price of four million euros.According to the auction house, the Red Mauritius envelope only changes hands every few decades.

Red Mauritius and Blue Mauritius, the Süddeutsche Zeitung reported, are considered the most coveted stamps among philatelists.It was them that in 1847 the wife of the British governor of the island pasted on envelopes with invitations to her costume balls.

These stamps, by the way, were made in a very simple way – on a printing press for business cards.And now they are considered precious rarities.

Meanwhile, there are 12 blue stamps that were intended for international correspondence.And there are 15 red ones. Of these, three are on the original envelope, which is especially appreciated by philatelists.One of them belongs to the Queen of Great Britain, the other is kept in the philatelic collection of the British Library, and the third was owned by the millionaire Vikram Chand.This third envelope ended up at auction in Ludwigsburg with a starting price of four million euros.In the end, one in three interested bidders paid twice as much.According to the organizers of the auction, it was a German-speaking collector from Europe.