Valuable Curiosities from the British Guiana 
Post Office. 
By Edward C. Luard. 
OME years ago there appeared in the Times 
a paragraph headed " Human folly". The 
lines beneath this announcement contained a 
brief report of an auction sale of used foreign postage 
stamps which had taken place at one of the principal auc- 
tion rooms in London. A collection of these bits of paper 
had been broken up into lots and sold, the nett proceeds 
amounting to several hundreds of pounds. A single 
stamp, one of those first issued to, and used by, the 
British Guiana public, in 1850, fetched £35. It was a 
circular impression in black on primrose coloured tissue 
paper, bearing the words " British Guiana" — a most 
miserable specimen of design and execution, and the 
facial value was only four cents. 
Now, I daresay many of us have read of the recent 
sale of the magnificent Hamilton collection ; and we all 
know that old china, coins, and other curiosities of a 
by-gone day frequently fetch enormous prices, while to 
any but collectors, most of these things possess but a 
passing interest. For taking great trouble, and spending 
time and money in collecting the above, a man is not 
called a fool ; but when he does the same in the pursuit 
of old postage stamps he is laughed at. We all take 
a great interest in this colony, loving it while we are 
here, and still more when we are absent ; so if I put 
