After Great Britain and the Swiss canton of Zurich, Brazil was the world’s third country to issue postage stamps. The idea for this came from a German, Jacob Sturz, who was the director of an British mining company. The origin of the rather unusual stamp design, the so-called “Bull’s Eyes”, was probably a banknote of the Brazilian State Bank. Luis Alemany Indarte shows in his collection, which is one of the best collections of the area ever put together, the various printings from six plates with many stamps and blocks, among which is the famous “xiphopagus pair” of two denominations. The study of Brazilian cancellations on the “Bull’s Eyes” had already fascinated the earliest collectors of Brazil. The collection shows almost all the known postmarks.
160 pages, of which 128 are full-colour plates showing pages from the collection, hardbound with dust jacket, bilingual in English and German