FLOAT 100 · Stamps · No. 63
Uruguay 1856 'Diligencia' (Stagecoach)
Uruguay's first stamps were ordered by the man who ran the stagecoaches, drawn on a cracked lithographic stone around a smiling sun, and canceled with a stroke of the pen; only five covers bearing the red 1-real value are known today.
- Year
- 1856
- Maker
- Uruguay (Montevideo issue)
- By price in stamps
- 86 of 100
Create a free account to see every recorded price and every grade.
Create a free account- Issued
- October 1, 1856, Montevideo; earliest known use October 14, 1856
- Values
- 60 centavos blue (single letters), 80 centavos green (double letters), 1 real red to vermilion (triple letters)
- Ordered by
- Atanasio Lapido, postmaster and head of the stagecoach mail service
- Printed by
- Lucien Mege's lithographic workshop in Montevideo
- Design
- A sun with a face, inscribed "DILIGENCIA" (stagecoach)
- Format
- Imperforate, lithographed in sheets of 35 (five across, seven down), no watermark
- Known covers
- 38 with the 60c, 13 with the 80c and 5 with the 1 real (2025 count)
- Multiples
- None of the 1 real; one pair of the 60c; three of the 80c, including a block of 15
After the Great War, a mail coach service
Uruguay's long civil conflict known as the Guerra Grande, the Great War, began in 1839 and pulled in Argentina, Brazil, France and Britain before it ended in 1851 with the lifting of the siege of Montevideo. In the recovery that followed, the government gave mail privileges to a British steamship line, which began carrying letters to Europe every month. Mail to Argentina still went by sailing ship or steamer in a disorganized way, and inland mail barely existed.
Atanasio Lapido was hired as an assistant at the post office in 1852. In 1853 he organized a relay system that carried mail across the country by stagecoach along fixed routes. In 1856 he was appointed postmaster and introduced Uruguay's first stamps, at lower rates than before: 60 centavos for a single letter, 80 for a double letter and 1 real for a triple letter.
Because Lapido was in charge of both the post and the coaches, the issue sits on the line between private and official. Some writers describe it as a private issue of the stagecoach companies; others note that it must have had official status. No government order or printing contract has been found. The stamps were valid only for mail within Uruguay. Lapido resigned at the end of 1857 and was succeeded by Prudencio Echevarriarza.
A sun on a stone
The stamps show a sun with a human face, the emblem known in the region as the Sun of May, with the word "DILIGENCIA" (stagecoach) to show how the mail traveled. They were printed by lithography at the Montevideo workshop of Lucien Mege, a printer who had worked in Argentina. That is probably why the stamps use the word "centavos" rather than Uruguay's "centésimos": it seems to have been a slip carried over from Argentine usage.
Each sheet held 35 stamps, five across and seven down. Because the designs were transferred one by one to the stone, each of the 35 positions differs slightly, which gives collectors 35 types to tell apart. The 80c and 1 real each have 35 varieties, while one early account says the 60c shows none. Reassembling a complete sheet from loose singles, called plating, can take a collector years.
The stone itself cracked. The crack prints as a white line through positions 20, 24, 28 and 29 and is visible on all three values. On the 1 real, position 25 has a white stain at the top from wear to the stone and is the most sought-after position. The stamps measure about 18.5 by 22 millimeters.
Genuine used stamps were canceled by hand, usually with a pen cross, and some covers went through the mail with no cancellation at all. No handstamp cancels were used on this issue. On October 1, 1857, the set was redrawn, and in 1858 a new series of larger sun stamps, the "Soles de Montevideo," was issued for mail to Argentina.
How many survive
Survivors are counted mostly on covers, the folded letters that carried the stamps. A census published in 2025 records 38 covers with the 60c blue, 13 with the 80c green and only 5 with the 1 real red. The earliest recorded use of the issue is October 14, 1856, and the latest is August 4, 1859. The last recorded use of the 1 real is May 7, 1859.
Multiples are rarer still. Only one pair of the 60c is known, from positions 9 and 10; it belongs to the Tapling collection, now at the British Library in London. The 80c is known in three multiples, two blocks of four and the famous "Ferrer Block" of 15, all cut from a single sheet that dealers divided around 1890. No multiple of the 1 real exists.
One 1-real cover, apparently dated October 24, 1856, passed through the collection of Alfred H. Caspary and was sold in New York in June 1958.
A favorite of forgers
Lithographed stamps from a small printer are easy targets, and the Diligencias attracted many forgers. One writer counts perhaps ten who tried. The French forger Francois Fournier made copies that he illustrated in his own album.
The most skillful was Jean de Sperati, who liked the issue so much that he used the Diligencia sun face as his logo. He made the 60c in three types, the 80c in two and the 1 real in four, along with forged cancels and fake gum, and filled custom orders for specific sheet positions so collectors could complete plate reconstructions. Specialists separate his work from genuine stamps by small flaws, dashes and dots that appear in fixed places on each of his types.
What they bring
Ordinary examples of the set are rare but not out of reach. In one U.S. auction, a complete set of the three values without gum sold for $500, and a group of fifteen unused 1-real singles in mixed condition sold for $800, both well below their catalogue values. A single 80c green with large margins brought $350 in the same sale.
Covers command far more, and complete reconstructions of all 35 positions of a value are major exhibition pieces. Of the three, the 1 real on cover, with only five recorded, is the key to the issue.
The numbers
- Issue date
- October 1, 1856
- Values and colors
- 60c blue, 80c green, 1 real red (catalogued as vermilion)
- Printing
- Lithography, Lucien Mege's workshop, Montevideo
- Sheet
- 35 stamps, 5 columns by 7 rows, each position a distinct type
- Size
- About 18.5 x 22 mm
- Paper and perforation
- White wove paper, no watermark, imperforate
- Cancellation
- Pen, usually a cross; some covers uncanceled; no handstamps
- Known covers (2025)
- 60c: 38; 80c: 13; 1 real: 5
- Known multiples
- 60c: one pair; 80c: three; 1 real: none
- Plate flaw
- Cracked stone, white line at positions 20, 24, 28 and 29
Timeline
The Guerra Grande ends with the lifting of the siege of Montevideo.
Atanasio Lapido joins the post office as an assistant.
Lapido organizes mail delivery across Uruguay by stagecoach.
The Diligencia stamps are issued: 60c blue, 80c green and 1 real red.
Earliest recorded use of the issue; a circular of the same date is its earliest known documentation.
The set is redrawn.
Lapido resigns as postmaster; Prudencio Echevarriarza succeeds him.
The larger "Soles de Montevideo" sun stamps are issued for mail to Argentina.
Latest recorded use of the 1 real.
Latest recorded use of the Diligencia issue.
Around this time dealers cut up the Wonner sheet of the 80c, the source of all its known multiples.
A 1-real cover from Alfred H. Caspary's collection is sold at auction in New York.
A census records 38, 13 and 5 covers of the three values.
The world in 1851
Uruguay's Guerra Grande, fought since 1839 with Argentine, Brazilian, French and British involvement, comes to an end.
The Saimaa Canal opens in Finland.
The Arrow Incident on China's Pearl River starts the Second Opium War.
A powerful earthquake strikes the eastern Mediterranean, killing hundreds on Crete.
James Buchanan wins the U.S. presidential election.
The National Portrait Gallery is established in London.
Price record
A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.
By reference price, Uruguay 1856 'Diligencia' (Stagecoach) is number 86 of 100 in the stamps entries of the FLOAT 100. 82 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (63 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.
Did you know
- The stamps say "centavos" even though Uruguay's currency unit was the centésimo, probably a habit the printer brought from Argentina.
- The lithographic stone cracked, and the crack shows as a white line on four positions of every sheet.
- No handstamp was ever used to cancel these stamps; clerks crossed them out with a pen.
- The forger Jean de Sperati liked the issue so much that he used its sun face as his own logo.
- Every known multiple of the 80c green, including a block of 15, was cut from a single sheet in about 1890.
- The only known pair of the 60c is held at the British Library in London.
How this page is made
- The figure
- One reference price, shown with its own kind. FLOAT does not average it with anything or adjust it for time.
- Realized or not
- A realized price is a completed sale. An asking price, an estimate and a price-guide value are not sales, and are labeled as such wherever they appear.
- The story
- Researched from published records and checked fact by fact. Updated Oct 3, 2026.
- Archive
- Oct 5, 2026