|The famous collector, who kept the stamp for several decades; during this time, it became known as the "Rarest Stamp in the World"

|-

! scope="row" |French government

|1920–1922

|None

|France

|Ferrary died in 1917. France seized his stamp collection and auctioned it in Paris between 1921 and 1926; at this time, the wider world finally saw an image of the famed 1c magenta

|Paid over $32,500 in 1922 at the Ferrary sale, making world headlines; he showed the stamp at various exhibitions

|-

! scope="row" |Frederick Trouton Small

|1940–1970

|A comet handstamp; his agent, Finbar Kenny, also initialled "FK" in pencil

|Australia

|Finbar Kenny, manager of the Macy's stamp department, brokered the purchase

|"JEdP" in pencil

|United States

|Heir to the DuPont fortune, murdered wrestler Dave Schultz and died in prison

|United Kingdom

|London stamp dealing company since 1856, with a royal warrant; purchased at Sotheby's in New York on June 8, 2021, for $8,307,000 (including premium)

In the 1920s a rumour developed that a second copy of the stamp had been discovered by then-owner, Arthur Hind, who quietly purchased the supposed second copy to subsequently destroy it. The rumour has not been substantiated. printed as facsimiles on modern paper. The stamp was twice examined and found to be a fake by the Royal Philatelic Society London. In their opinion, this specimen is an altered 4c magenta stamp.

Public display

thumb|Stanley Gibbons promoting their ownership of the stamp at their stand at Autumn Stampex 2021

The stamp was displayed at the 1939 New York World's Fair, the 1956 Fifth International Philatelic Exhibition (FIPEX) in the New York Coliseum, in Australia in 1963, at New York's 1964 Centenary International Stamp exhibition (CIPEX), in London in 1965 and at Toronto's Canadian Philatelic Exhibition (CAPEX) in 1978.

In November 2014, the National Postal Museum of the Smithsonian Institution announced that the then-anonymous owner of the stamp had agreed to display it at the museum in Washington, D.C., beginning 4 June 2015 and running through 2 December 2018. Next to the Postal Museum exhibit is a copy of a Donald Duck comic book, The Gilded Man, (OS 422) from 1952 whose central plot element revolves around Donald and his nephews, Huey, Louie and Dewey, going to British Guiana to try to find another copy of the stamp. The comic is written and drawn by Carl Barks.

The stamp was exhibited in the Court of Honor at World Stamp Show-NY 2016 in New York City from 28 May to 3 June 2016.

Shortly after the 2021 sale, the British stamp dealing and philatelic publishing firm of Stanley Gibbons announced themselves as the buyers of the stamp. Beginning November 8, 2021, individuals are able to purchase fractional ownership of the stamp from Stanley Gibbons. It recently appeared in September 2023 at the London Stampex exhibition, and during November—December 2023 in Bangkok.

  • The plot of a 1952 Donald Duck comic by Carl Barks called The Gilded Man revolves around a trip to British Guiana to search for a One-Cent Magenta.
  • In The Adventure of the Penny Magenta, the private detective Solar Pons solves in one of his cases the theft of the One-Cent Magenta. This short story is part of the collection The Return of Solar Pons by August Derleth, published in 1958. Wrongly called "one-penny magenta" there, all the details (year of print, real owners mentioned, octagonal form) give away that it is the One-Cent Magenta.

See also

  • List of postage stamps
  • List of most expensive philatelic items
  • Finbar Kenny, manager of Macy's stamp department, who arranged the sale of the stamp in 1940
  • Robert A. Siegel, who auctioned the stamp twice, in 1970 and 1980
  • Treskilling Yellow

Notes

References