📋 Tender Overview
On April 4, 2024, the Federal Ministry of Finance issued a special postage stamp “Treasures of Philately – America's First ” from the “Stamp Day” series.
The Federal Ministry of Finance will present the stamp in Berlin on Tuesday. The presentation will take place on April 16, 2024 at 11 a.m. in the Museum for Communication, Leipziger Straße 16, 10117 Berlin .
The “Treasures of Philately” series will continue in 2024 with a rare letter from South America. It is one of the special features that has fascinated not only Brazil collectors since it became known.
Brazil is the third country in the world and the first country in the Americas to issue stamps. On August 1, 1843, what philatelists called “ox eyes” (Olho-de-boi) because of their appearance appeared. The values ??were 30, 60 and 90 Réis (plural of Real). However, neither the currency nor the country name were mentioned. The stamps were not perforated, but had to be cut out of the sheets with scissors at the post office counter. Only around 200 letters with the “ox eyes” are known; most of them were carelessly thrown away by the recipients or did not survive the coming decades.
On August 22, 1843, an unknown sender posted a letter at the court post office in the city of Rio de Janeiro to the port city of Santos, about 500 kilometers south. The letter was transported on a sailing ship. The sender was not aware that he was creating a rarity for postal historians: all three “ox eyes” were used on the letter, and the 60 Réis stamp was even stuck on as a pair. The total postage was 240 Réis, a proud amount for the time. But it also shows the importance of the content of the letter. Otherwise the sender would probably have looked for a cheaper transport option.
Today the letter is also referred to as “ America's First ”. There is no other surviving letter with this combination of “ox eyes.” It has been known since around 1918 and was first introduced in 1923 in the “Great Lexicon of Philately” by Alexander Bungerz. The owner at the time is not known; the letter had previously been “sleeping” in a collection for 80 years. In 1956 it was bought by a Brazilian collector, and in 1975 the Brazilian dealer Rolf Harald Meyer was able to purchase it in Basel. A few years ago a new owner was found at an auction in Switzerland.
