SG 48 half penny plate 14 1870
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Mint GB Stamps
The plate number 14 can be clearly seen on the left and right sides
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. Head engraved by Frederick Heath.
The value is a number ½ rather than words as in the other values
The plate had 20 rows of 24 stamps each with corner letters going up as far
as X
there are 480 stamps to the sheet (value £1)
| 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 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| DA | etc | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| EA | ES | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 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 | 1 |
| Die | II |
| Alphabet | |
| Watermark | half penny |
| Perf | 14 |
| Paper | white |
| Registered | 20 April 1876 |
| Number issued | 175,000,000 |
Numbers issued
| Plate | Number | sheets |
| 1 | 58,320.000 | 121,500 |
| 3 | 92,400,000 | 192,500 |
| 4 | 127,008,000 | 264,600 |
| 5 | 255,936,000 | 533,200 |
| 6 | 193,008,000 | 402,100 |
| 8 | 12,500,000 | estimate |
| 9 | 2,500,000 | estimate |
| 10 | 185,328,000 | 386,100 |
| 11 | 197,280,000 | 411,000 |
| 12 | 175,000,000 | estimate |
| 13 | 175,000,000 | estimate |
| 14 | 175,000,000 | estimate |
| 15 | 80,000,000 | estimate |
| 19 | 60,000,000 | estimate |
| 20 | 48,000,000 | estimate |
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