“Post Office” Mauritius
The first British colony to issue stamps following the Penny Black and Twopenny Blue issued in Great Britain in 1840 was Mauritius, in 1847.
This remote island in the Indian Ocean (home of the now extinct dodo) had authorised a stamp issue in 1846, but it took some months for the stamps to appear; 21 September 1847 is the generally accepted date for their first appearance. It is commonly suggested that the stamps were introduced to enable invitations to be sent out by the wife of the Governor of Mauritius for a Ball she was giving. This is unlikely to be the case for two reasons; firstly that the stamp issue had been authorised many months earlier and secondly that the Ball itself was to take place on 30 September and usually invitations to such formal events would be sent out some weeks in advance. It is more likely that the stamps were used for general postage including, in the case of the one penny value, to send out admission cards to the Ball.
The frame you see has two pages – the first shows one of three known surviving “Ball” envelopes, and is postmarked 21 September. The stamp is the one penny in red, for local postage.
The second page shows an unused copy of the blue two pence value stamp. Widely know as the “Blue Mauriutus”, it is one of the rarest stamps in the world. Only four unused copies are believed to have survived and this one is generally regarded as the finest of them, both for condition and colour.
The “Post Office” stamps (so named because of the inscription up the left hand side) were printed from a single plate with a single image of each value on it. The engraver was Joseph Barnard, a local who had an engraving business at the time. It has to be said that his image of Queen Victoria is not very flattering. Apparently 500 stamps of each value were printed in September 1847, which was a slow process. So when more stamps were required by the Post Office it was decided that fresh plates should be engraved, one for each value, and with 12 images of the stamps on each plate to enable faster printing.
The later stamps had the left hand side inscription changed to read “Post Paid” and it has often been said that the original “Post Office” inscription was a mistake and that part of the reason for the new plates was to change the inscription. It is now suggested that is wrong; at the time the stamps first appeared handstamps read “Post Office” so it was logical to include that wording on the stamps. The “improved” stamps of 1848, now reading “Post Paid”, certainly have a better look to them, although the image of Queen Victoria is not improved!
毛里求斯“邮局邮票”
英国于1840年发行黑便士邮票和蓝色2便士邮票之后，在英属殖民地中，毛里求斯最先于1847年发行了邮票。
这个印度洋上偏僻的岛国 (现已绝种的渡渡鸟的家乡)于1846年被授权发行一套邮票。但是邮票的印制需要好几个月时间，这套邮票公认的发行首日是1847年9月21日。通常认为，这套邮票是为毛里求斯总督夫人要寄发舞会请柬而发行。但这不太可能，原因有二：一是批准发行邮票需要很长时间；二是舞会于9月30日举行，而此类正式活动通常需要在几个星期之前发出邀请。这更可认定这套邮票是作为正常的邮资而发行的，包括为寄舞会邀请卡而贴用与邮资相符的1便士邮票。
王室邮集中的“舞会信函”封，贴红色1便士邮票1枚,9月21日邮戳盖销邮票，符合本地邮资。系已知存世3件中的1件。
未使用过的蓝色2便士邮票。众所周知，作为“蓝色的毛里求斯”，它是世界上最珍罕的邮票之一，未使用票存世仅知4枚。此枚通常被认为是其中品相与刷色最好的一枚。
“邮局”邮票（因邮票左边的文字而得名），不同面值的邮票由单一印版印刷，雕刻者是当时以雕刻为业的本地人约瑟夫·巴纳德（Joseph Barnard），据说他雕刻的维多利亚女王的图像不太让人满意。1847年9月，2种面值的邮票各印刷了500枚，印制过程缓慢。 因此，当邮局需要更多的邮票时，遂决定每种面值各刻一个新印版，每版上有12个票图，以利加快印刷。
后一套邮票的左边文字改成了“POST PAID”（邮资已付），按原先的说法，“POST OFFICE”（邮局）文字是错误的，理由之一是新的印版改变了左边的文字。现在有人认为那些说法不正确；当初曾见过盖有“Post Office”字样的手盖邮戳，所以包括印在邮票上的用词是符合逻辑的。1848年“改进”后的邮票，文字表示为“POST PAID”，当然，它们看起来比较美观，然而,维多利亚女王的图像并没有改进!
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