Jean-Baptiste Moens

By 1853, at age nineteen, he was buying and selling new and second-hand books, and stamps, from the Bortier Gallery, a covered walkway in central Brussels.

In 1878 Moens published the first of his works on the early stamps of Mauritius, Les Timbres de Maurice depuis leur origine jusqu'à nos jours, (The Stamps of Mauritius from their Origin until Today), benefiting from the studies of Edward B. Evans, the Philatelic Society of London, and Judge Frederick Philbrick.

Helen Morgan noted, "All that is known of the discovery of the first specimens of the Post Office issue, indeed of much of the history of the handful of those stamps eventually found, came from his pen in the late 1890s.

[4] As Moens' business prospered, he assembled a large stock of collectibles of all kinds and a library devoted to music and antiquities, as well as stamps.

By 1 November 1899, to preserve his health, Jean-Baptiste announced in Le Timbre-poste that the time had come to free himself from the duties of publication and to liquidate most of his stock in trade.