The Issued Stamps - (perforated rather than imperforated like the colour trials)
| 1876 Colour Trials plate 15 - imperforate | ||||
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The Issued Stamps - (perforated rather than imperforated like the colour trials) |
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| Plate 15 | Plate 15 | Plate 16 | Plate 17 | Plate 18 |
The colour trial was carried out on plate 15 in 1876
and resulted in the colour changing from vermillion to sage-green in 1877
Display of the 2½d, 3d, 4d, 6d., and 1s surface-printed stamps
The Surface printed stamps were introduced in 1855 and replaced the high value (6d, 10d and 1s) embossed values of 1847-54. The low value line engraved stamps continued until 1879. The Surface printed stamps were printed by Thomas De La Rue & Co. The 4d value was first introduced in 1855 to prepay letters to France and the die was engraved by Jean Ferdinand Joubert de la Ferté (1810-1884) a refugee from Napoleonic France. The surface printed stamps of 1855-83 form four distinct families.
SG is the Stanley Gibbons catalogue number. These stamps have different watermarks, plate numbers, colours as well as design changes. The plate number is usually incorporated into the design. The stamps overprinted 'SPECIMEN' were usually sent to the postmaster as an example. |
| For plates 1 to 17 there were four panes of 60 stamps arranged as below. The wing-margin stamps would therefore have either an F or G in the SE corner. That is 40 out of 240 stamps in the sheet will have wing-margins. For Imperial Crown watermark sheet layout see here. |
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See also
High
Value Colour Trials 1878
The
1840 Rainbow Colour Trials
For more examples of the colour trials and proofs for the 4d
coloured letters
see the
R M
Phillips collection Vol XXXIV pages
21
to
35