Blue Penny Museum
The Blue Penny Museum, a museum dedicated to the history and art of Mauritius, is situated at Caudan Waterfront in Port Louis, the capital of Mauritius. It opened in November 2001.
The museum collection includes the 1847 Blue Penny and Red Penny stamps. The stamps were bought in 1993 for $2,000,000 by a consortium of Mauritian enterprises headed by The Mauritius Commercial Bank and brought back to Mauritius after almost 150 years.For conservation, the originals are illuminated only temporarily. Most of the time only copies are to be seen.
The museum, founded by The Mauritius Commercial Bank,also houses the original statue of Paul and Virginia, created in 1881 by Prosper d’Épinay.
Mauritius Postal Museum
The Mauritius Postal Museum is the Postal museum in Port Louis, the capital city of Mauritius. The building of today’s museum was built as the General Post Office between 1865 and 1870. It is located at the harbour, beside the customs building in the center of the city.
In January 1865 construction started under the supervision of surveyor general Morrison and by 1868 three-quarters of the building was complete and it took another two years to complete the building project. The building is a good example of Victorian architecture of public colonial buildings during the reign of Queen Victoria, that are still present in such countries as, India, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Trinidad and Guyana.
It was a replacement for the previous General Post Office then located in Government Street near Government House, where the post office had been headquartered since 1847.