It is the only major postage stamp ever issued in the United Kingdom or British Commonwealth that is not represented in Britain's Royal Philatelic Collection.

[5] It is imperforate, printed in black on magenta paper, and it features a sailing ship along with the colony's Latin motto "Damus Petimus Que Vicissim" (We give and expect in return) in the middle.

[6] With its sale in June 2014 to Stuart Weitzman for $9,480,000,[1][2] the 1c magenta has broken the world record for a single stamp auction price a total of four times.

Dalton was not pleased with the result and as a safeguard against forgery ordered that all correspondence bearing the stamps be autographed by a post office clerk.

[11] It was discovered in 1873 by a 12-year-old Scottish schoolboy, Louis Vernon Vaughan, in the Guyanese county of Demerara (whose postmark the stamp bears), amongst his uncle's letters.

There was no record of it in his stamp catalogue so he sold it some weeks later for six shillings[3] to a local collector, Neil Ross McKinnon.

[13] Arthur Hind bought the stamp in Paris in April 1922, at one of the auctions of Ferrary's possessions, for over $32,000—reportedly outbidding three kings, including George V, whose agent was at the sale.

[6] On 30 October 1935 it was offered for sale at Harmer Rooke & Co auction 2704, lot 26, where a bid of £7,500 was received from Percival Loines Pemberton.

It was purchased for $40,000 by Fred "Poss" Small, an Australian-born engineer from Florida, who had wanted to own the stamp since he first heard about it as a boy.

[17] Du Pont's estate sold the stamp on 17 June 2014 at a Sotheby's New York auction, sale number N09154, for $9,480,000, including buyer's premium.

[17] The stamp was put up for auction again at Sotheby's in New York on 8 June 2021, where it sold for $8,307,000, falling short of the pre-sale estimate and the previous sale price.

[8][19] It was purchased by rare stamp dealership Stanley Gibbons, who placed it on display at their London shop in a specially-constructed zero-oxygen frame.

[21] After his company purchased the stamp, Stanley Gibbons CEO Graham Shircore said "we're delighted to be welcoming it back on to British soil where we hope it will remain.

[23] It was said that infrared photos taken at the Smithsonian National Postal Museum in 2014 "revealed a four-leaf clover beneath the seventeen-point star" design on the stamps' reverse; the star was said to have been applied by Ann Hind to "obscure her husband's mark," a cloverleaf design that bears his initials, "AH.

"[6] In their exhibition of the stamp, Stanley Gibbons listed the seventeen point handstamp as part of Arthur Hind's mark.

[24] Most recently, Stuart Weitzman added his initials and a line drawing of a stiletto shoe in pencil, causing some controversy in philatelic circles.

The stamp was owned by Peter Winter, who is widely known for producing many forgeries of classic philatelic items,[37] printed as facsimiles on modern paper.