In September 1847, Elizabeth Kerr (married name of Lady Gomm), was one of the first to put red stamps depicting the portrait of Queen Victoria on envelopes containing invitations to her costume party. As the wife of the governor of the British colony of Mauritius, Lady Gomm was at the heart of the social life of the Indian Ocean island and organising such parties was part of her daily life.
The specific stamps were the first ones issued by Mauritius, one of the first territories in the world, after Great Britain, the United States, Switzerland and Brazil, to have its own stamps of this type.
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The stamps, adorned with the portrait of Queen Victoria, were issued on 21 September 1847 in red and blue, in an edition of 500 each. Today, there are only 15 copies of the red variant and 12 of the blue variant still in existence, the latter being much more famous.
Three copies of the red stamp, also called the 'Red Mauritius', can still be found on the envelopes sent by Lady Elizabeth Gomm in 1847. One of them, named 'Ball Invitation Envelope', is part of the collection of Queen Elizabeth II, while the other is kept at the British Library in London. The third envelope, which was still in private hands and which therefore represented an absolute philatelic treasure, was auctioned on 26 June.
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The Gärtner auction house in Bietigheim-Bissingen, Germany, had the honour of presenting the last envelope flanked by the 'Red Mauritius' as part of a sale celebrating the house's 50th anniversary.
The envelope was owned by a Singapore-based businessman and collector, who wanted to give someone else the opportunity to profit from the item, as the auctioneer Christoph Gärtner explained.
Bidding started started at €4 million, before reaching €8.1 million (£7 mil) from two fierce bidders operating by phone. The new owner is said to be a collector from German-speaking Europe.
This envelope replaced the famous 'Bordeaux letter', which was auctioned for $4 million in 2006 and held the record for the most expensive postage-paid envelope in auction history. This lot also surpasses the highest price ever for a single stamp, previously $9.48 million paid for the 1c magenta from British Guiana in 2014.
