Basel Dove

Switzerland was only the second country to adopt postage stamps, and Basel's city post produced the most beautiful of the early ones. Designed by the architect Melchior Berri and launched in July 1845, the 2½ rappen stamp shows a white dove carrying a letter, raised in embossed relief, and it is usually described as the first stamp printed in three colors. That ambition is the point: barely five years after the Penny Black, a single city was already treating the stamp as a small work of art. It paid for a letter within Basel itself, and it is the classic that anyone drawn to early Swiss issues hopes to see in fine condition.