Cottonreels for Miss Rose

It is a unique cover to Miss Rose on the Blankenburg plantation in Demerara, franked with a pair of primitive 4c first issue British Guyana stamps. Because of their unusual appearance, they are known in British parlance as “cottonreels”. Indeed, these stamps strongly resemble the labels on wooden spools of thread. The British colony also produced other world-famous stamps, most notably the 1c magenta issued in 1850, which, to the best of our knowledge, exists only once and was last auctioned in 2014 for $9.5 million. Both the Miss Rose cover and the 1c magenta cover have been the subject of a number of adventurous stories, the truth of which cannot always be verified. Unfortunately, we cannot offer the world rarities described here at our 55th auction. Instead, we offer a 1c black on magenta stamp from the 1852 issue in unused condition – a rare and desirable piece for collectors of this British colony in South America.