SG 48 half penny plate 5 1870
V is the 22nd letter of the alphabet and the corner letters U, V, W, and X
are only found on this ½d stamp because it was printed in rows of 24.
The only other stamps in horizontal format are some of the
lilac and
greens
but even these are in
rows
of 20 not 24
Scan courtesy Elstree Stamps
The ½d was introduced in 1870 for the new popular postcard rate.
This had its own half penny watermark over three stamps
It is the smallest GB stamp.
The plate had 20 rows of 24 stamps each with corner letters going up as far as X
| AA | AB | AC | AD | AE | AF | AG | AH | AI | AJ | AK | AL | AM | AN | AO | AP | AQ | AR | AS | AT | AU | AV | AW | AX |
| BA | BX | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| CA | CX | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| etc | etc | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| . | . | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| RA | RX | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| SA | SX | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| TA | TB | TC | TD | TE | TF | TG | TH | TI | TJ | TK | TL | TM | TN | TO | TP | TQ | TR | TS | TT | TU | TV | TW | TX |
| Plate | 5 |
| Die | II |
| Alphabet | |
| Watermark | half penny |
| Perf | 14 |
| Paper | white |
| Registered | 12 July 1870 |
| Number issued | 255,936,000 |
15 plates were used to print the stamp, plates 1 to 20, except plates 2, 7,
16, 17, 18,
it is estimated that only 2,500,000 stamps were printed from plate 9, hence it
is comparitively rare.
Overall between 1870-79 1,600,276,320 ½d stamps were issued
only 42,638,160 of the 1½d stamps were issued in the same period