Corner letters

colour trial (no corner letters)	penny black May 1840 corner letters JF

Corner letters

The stamps were printed in sheets of 240 (20x12) and the stamps had corner letters corresponding to its position on the plate. For example the top row of twelve stamps has corner letters AA, AB, AC, ....AL. There were 240 pence to the pound and 20 shillings to the pound, so a sheet of stamps would cost £1, half a sheet ten shillings, one row of 12 stamps cost a shilling. Four different alphabets were used in the course of time to form the corner letters. The penny black had two corner letters, JF is shown below as well as its position on the sheet. The corner letters allow us to identify the position of a stamp in the sheet and this allows us to find the sheet number because each stamp has unique characteristics.

Sheet Layout

One way of collecting stamps is to reconstruct a sheet by obtaining all 240 possible corner letters.

The stamps were initially not perforated, but had to be cut with scissors, perforations were introduced in 1854. Each stamp had its own 'small crown' watermark. Due to wear eleven different plates were used to print the Penny Black. Four alphabets were used for the corner letters.

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