Mauritius "Post Office" stamps
first stamps of the British Colony Mauritius (1847)
The Mauritius "Post Office" stamps were issued by the British Colony Mauritius in September 1847, in two denominations: an orange-red one penny (1d) and a deep blue two pence (2d). Their name comes from the wording on the stamps reading "Post Office", which was soon changed in the next issue to "Post Paid". They are among the rarest postage stamps in the world.
The stamps' history
They were engraved by Joseph Osmond Barnard, born in England in 1816, who stowed away on a ship to Mauritius in 1838. The designs were based on the then current issue of Great Britain stamps (first released in 1841), bearing the profile head of Queen Victoria and issued in two denominations in similar colours: one penny red brown and Two Pence Blue. Although these locally produced stamps have a distinct primitive character, they made Barnard's "name immortal in the postal history of Mauritius".
Five hundred of each stamp were printed from a single plate bearing one engraving of each value, and issued on September 21, 1847 - many of which were used on invitations sent out by the wife of the Governor of Mauritius for a ball she was holding that weekend. The stamps were printed using the intaglio method (recessed printing), and bear the engraver's initials "JB" at the lower right margin of the bust.
The words "Post Office" appear in the left panel, but on the following issue in 1848, these words were replaced by "Post Paid". A legend arose later that the words "Post Office" had been an error.
The public source identifies “Mauritius "Post Office" stamps” as first stamps of the British Colony Mauritius (1847). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Mauritius, Post and Office.
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This entry incorporates text from “Mauritius "Post Office" stamps” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.