Lot 60895 – 1857, 1r blue on bluish paper, a magnificent mint block of four

1857, 1r blue on bluish paper, a magnificent block of four, sharp impression and brilliant colour, large balanced margins on all sides, large part original gum, small thin spot confined to top right; a highly desirable and extremely rare multiple -believed to be fewer than five recorded- of this charismatic stamp which is graced by a design of great aesthetic taste.

Note: The 1r and 2r were engraved by William Salter and printed in sheets of 160 (16×10) by Perkins, Bacon & Petch in 1847 and 1848. The stamps were produced for the Pacific Steam Navigation Company and introduced to pre-pay mail carried by PSNC steamers, but they were never used for this purpose. In 1851, the General Postmaster of Peru, José Dávila Condemarín, proposed postage stamps to be introduced in the country, but only in 1856 he was able to persuade the Government to use them, although the local production of stamps was not approved until 1857 and the first stamps were available in May 1858. Previously the General Postmaster had decided to make an experiment to check how the system would work in 1857-58, by primarily obtaining the available stamps of the PSNC through its manager Jorge Petrie, who gratuitously provide the stamps to use them for a pre-paid trial postal service between Lima, Callao and Chorillos. During the period of storage of ten years from 1847 to 1857 at the PSNC offices at the port of Callao, and according to a decree of 27.11.1859, many of the sheets were stuck to each other probably due to the humidity. A third invoice of stamps, including the presumably largest quantity printed, was never sent to the PSNC and was in its majority damaged by a fire in the premises of Perkins, Bacon & Petch in London; furthermore the remaining unsold stamps in Peru were incinerated on order of the Peruvian Government on 15.12.1860. According to the description in the Peyton collection at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, it is stated that certainly all the blocks known are from the file records of the printers Perkins, Bacon & Petch: “they disposed of a damaged sheet after a fire” and it is thought that they destroyed all the rest. Indeed the multiples which have survived are very few, and blocks are exceedingly rare.

Provenance: Dr. Robert LeBow and Weinberg inventory.