British Stamp Trivia

British Stamp Trivia 1840-1934

Before the first postage stamp (May 1840)

There was a postal system before the Penny Black, only the receiver paid the cost of postage which depended on the distance travelled, and the number of sheets used, and it was expensive, naturally the receiver was reluctant to pay the high charge (a bit like getting a collect call from overseas these days).
Rowland Hill (1795-1879) is the man associated with the postal reform that gave a uniform postal rate throughout the British Isles, the sender paid, postage stamps indicated prepayment, and the cost was lower. As a result many more letters were sent.
Rowland Hill published his most famous pamphlet "Post Office Reform: its Importance and Practicability" in 1837
The design of the Queens head was based upon the 1837 Wyon City medal engraved by a famous coin engraver William Wyon. The design of Queen Victoria's head is based on a sitting when she was a princess aged 15. On the death of King William IV Victoria becomes Queen in 1837.
In Jan 1840 two engravers, Charles Heath and his son Frederick started to engrave the portrait of the Queen on a security background.
The uniform penny postage was introduced on Friday 10 January 1840, 4 months before stamps were issued on 6 May 1840 (example letter), now the cost was a uniform 1d per ½oz anywhere in Great Britain and the sender paid the now lower cost of postage, not the receiver.
10 Feb 1840 Queen Victoria marries Prince Albert, both were 20, she had nine children over the next 18 years.
In March 1840 work starts on a series of colour trials known as the Rainbow trials. These continued to the end of 1840.
The printing was done by Perkins, Bacon and Petch, plate 1 was registered on 15 April and again on 27 April 1840. Plate 2 was registered on 22 and 27 April. So two plates were available to print the issued stamps.
A Penny Black with top corner letters VR was prepared for use but not issued. It was to be an official stamp used for government offices. The plate was registered on 15 April and 9 May 1840. The plate had the letter A instead of the usual plate number in all four corners of the plate.


1840	1847	1855

Line-engraved 1840-79

On Friday May 1st 1840 the 1d postage stamp was made available to the public, but could not be used until the Wednesday 6th May.
The world's first stamp issued was the British Penny Black on Wednesday 6th May 1840. It is ~24 mm high and ~20mm wide including the margin.
Initially stamps were called labels and the gum called cement.
The twopenny blue came out two days later on Friday 8th May 1840
Queen Victoria was twenty when the penny black was issued on 6th May 1840.
About 65 million Penny Blacks were issued, and an estimated 32 million are still around today, so it is not a very rare stamp. However since the stamps had no perforations and had to be cut by scissors. Only the 4 and 3 margin stamps are worth collecting which will be a small fraction.
The largest block of penny blacks in existence is a block of 43 from plate 3 in the the R M Phillips Collection. The second largest block is a block of 36 from plate 7 also in the R M Phillips Collection
Only 6.46 million 2d Blue stamps were issued so it is much rarer.
Rowland Hill suggested the letter box. Now that letters were prepaid, just put it into the letter box, no need to collect payment.
In 1840 they had Christmas day deliveries, this cover was posted on 24th December and delivered on the 25th.
The Penny Black was issued in sheet of 240 stamps (20 x 12) so one sheet cost one pound and one row cost one shilling (12 pence is one shilling and there are 20 shillings to the Pound). Each stamp has unique corner letters that identify its position on the plate.
The corner letters go from AA at the top left to TL at the bottom right (20 rows of 12 stamps, 1s per row), thus letters U, V, W, X, Y and Z are not required. Except on the ½d stamp which has corner letters from AA to TX (20 rows of 24 stamps, 1s per row) only Y and Z not required.
The Penny Black changed colour in Feb 1841 to red-brown The colour was changed because the post office was afraid that people would reuse the stamps
11 plates were used for the penny black, 7 of these were used to print the penny red. The plates wore with use and new ones had to be made. The strongest plate (1) printed 41,885 sheets
In March 1841 the design of the two pence stamp was changed with two white lines added. A small trial plate of twelve impressions was made. This was on a small plate of twelve impressions and was required because the large plate was not ready and specimens were required for distribution with the announcement of the forthcoming issue
9th Nov 1841 future king Edward VII born
1843 First Christmas card in England
In 1844 the "killer" cancelation was introduced, which was designed to obliterate the stamp so that it could not be used again. Collectors have suffered ever since.
The first high value over the 2d line-engraved was the 1s embossed stamp of 1847. These have no corner letters and were printed in sheets of 20 or 24. The paper for the 1s and 10d had two silk threads passing through it. William Wyon engraved the primary die.
The colour of the paper of early line-engraved stamps varied from, blued, to cream to white.
William Wyon died (1795-1851) aged 56. He was the man responsible for design of the queen's head on the Penny black and the embossed issue. The 6d embossed was produced after his death in 1854 and does not have his initials WW engraved on it.
The printer of the line-engraved stamps changed its name from Perkins, Bacon & Petch to Perkins Bacon & Co. The company survived until 1935.
Perforations were officially introduced in 1854, 14 years after the first stamp in 1840, before perforations the stamps had to be cut out of a sheet of 240 stamps using scissors. Trials on a perforating machine invented by Henry Archer were carried out between 1850-1854.
The stamps also had watermarks which varied. Initially the small crown was used and the large crown was introduced in 1855.
For the 1d stamp 204 plates were from die 1, and 225 plates were made from die 2 introduced in 1855 until 1879. The stamps from Die 2 from plates 71 to 225 have the plate number engraved on each stamp.
British stamps never have the name of the country on them, they can be recognised by the monarch's head on each stamp
1855 First London Pillar Boxes
Perf 14 indicates that there are 14 perforations every two centimeters. This method was devised by Dr. Jacques Amable Legrand (1820-1912), an early French collector, who published what he called an odontometre (perforation gauge) in 1866. He wrote under the pseudonym “Dr. Magnus.” He wrote the first book about stamps published in 1867 Essai sur les Filigranes et les Papiers Employés à la Fabrication des Timbres-postes.
Before stamps had plate numbers engraved on the stamp in 1858, the plate could only be identified by small differences between the stamps, such as corner letter varieties.
The first stamp to have the plate number incorporated into the design is 2d blue plate 7 in 1858, the first 1d was plate 71 in 1864. These have letters in all four corners.
By 1860 about 85 countries or other entities had issued stamps and Great Britain had issued only 29 stamps. (source First Issues Collectors Club)
1869 The Philatelic Society, London established, now The Royal Philatelic Society London.
The first 1½d stamp was issued in 1870, to be used on the new 2 ounce postal rate. On plate 1 the corner letters are OP-PC instead of CP-PC, this error was apparently not noticed or recorded until 1894. As 66,134 sheets were printed from plate 1, there should be 66,134 examples of this error.
The 1½d stamp was first prepared for use in 1860, but not issued, and 10,000 sheets were printed in rosy-mauve. Of these, 1000 sheets were overprinted "specimen" and distributed to postmasters. 8,962 sheets were destroyed in May 1867 and the remaining 38 sheets (9,120 stamps) have since been split up and are in the hands of collectors.
The smallest stamp issued was the ½d issued in 1870 used for the new postcard and newspaper rate. It is the only stamp to use corner letters U, V, W, and X
The strongest plate from sg 43 (letters in all four corners, and plate numbers on stamps) was plate 140 which printed 982,500 sheets (235 million stamps) from 1870.
Plate 225, which we all need to complete our set from plates 71-225, only had about 3 million issued, (about 12,500 sheets) and is comparatively rare. Plates 75, 126, 128 were not issued.
Plate 77 is probably the rarest GB stamp with only 7 or 8 known (cat £120,000 mint), one (BA) is in the Tapling collection at the British Library.
The Line-engraved stamps have the value in words, ONE PENNY, TWO PENCE, THREE HALFPENCE, except for the ½d, which has d1/2 (the stamp was too small to have ONE HALF PENNY).
Stanley Gibbons has always been associated with stamp catalogues. Edward Stanley Gibbons was born in 1840, the year the Penny Black was issued. Gibbons founded the company in 1856. He produced stamp catalogues monthly from 1865. But the the first list was issued in 1861 in Paris and the first catalogues in 1862 by three different Englishmen.
1875 Universal Postal Union established at Geneva
Messrs. Perkins, Bacon & Co who printed the penny black in 1840 completed their printing contract for the line-engravedstamps on 31 Dec 1879 and produced 20,699,858,040 1d stamps.
Rowland Hill worked for the Treasury between 16th Sep 1839 until 1843, he returned to office as Secretary to the Postmaster-General in 1846 until his retirement in 1864, he was knighted in 1860 and died in 1879, the same year that Messrs. Perkins, Bacon & Co lost the contract to print the line-engraved low values.


1857	1881	1882

Surface printed 1855-1901

The first 4d surface printed stamp 1855, was designed by Jean Ferdinand Joubert de la Ferté a refugee from Napoleonic France, he was paid £100 for engraving the head. They were printed by Thomas De La Rue & Co, London
The early 1855 surface printed stamps had no corner letters (4d, 6d and 1s). Possibly because the embossed issue that they replaced did not have corner letters. Corner letters on the surface printed stamps were introduced in 1862.
Wing margins first appear with the surface printed stamps of 1855, they are due to gaps between panes of stamps on a sheet. There might be 12 panes of 20 (4x5) stamps on a sheet of 240 stamps.
Often during the years 1856-83 the same stamp was printed in different colours
In 1860 Thomas de la Rue printed its first paper money - Mauritius £5, £1 and 10/- notes.
1861 Prince Albert dies, Queen Victoria was 44 and had been married for 21 years
3 June 1865 future king George V is born, he lives to 1936 (71 years)
The first of the large high values over the smaller 2s was the 5s rose in 1867.
The first large size 2s 6d came out 16 years later in 1883
On the surface printed stamps the value is in words except for the 2½d, some of the high values have the value in words and numbers. A tradition repeated in most of the lilac and greens the exception being the ½d. The Jubilee issue the value is mostly in numbers, the exceptions being the ½d and 1s.
In 1873 the corner letters of the surface printed stamps were changed from large uncoloured letters to large coloured letters. The reason for this change was to reduce the time it took workmen to engrave the letters.
The low value line-engraved stamps (½d - 2d) were replaced by the surface printed provisional issue in 1880 (½d, 1d, 1½d, 2d and 5d) printed by De La Rue. Rowland Hill died before these were issued.
Only the 1d provisional issue 1880 (of a set of five) has corner letters.
1881 Postal orders introduced
The 1881 penny lilac which replaces the 1d provisional issue has no corner letters.
The penny lilac is also the first stamp to have the words POSTAGE AND INLAND REVENUE, postage stamps could now be used for postage and for revenue. From then on most stamps had the words POSTAGE AND REVENUE on them. The exceptions being the ½d lilac and greens and the high values over 2s 6d.
The Largest stamp ever issued was the Five Pound Orange in 1882
The 1882 Five Pound Orange is based on the Five Pound Telegraph stamp issued in 1877
The top two corner letter of the Five Pound Orange are 1 not I and show its plate number (plate 1) not the position on the plate, on the other high values the top corner letters indicate the position on the plate.
Normally the corner letters on the top row go AA, AB, AC, AD... but on the Five Pound Orange they go AA, BA, CA, DA
1883 Aug 1: Parcel post starts in Britain. 3d was the minimum inland postal rate.
In 1883 the 3d and 6d stamps were overprinted with the letters 3d. and 6d. and also the colour was changed. The idea being that the stamps would be recognizable in poor lighting.
The 1883 high values do not have the plate number incorporated into the design unlike earlier high value issues. The ten shilling stamp has a similar design to the 1878 £1 value.
The 1883 2s6d is the only stamp to use the notation 2/6 to show the value, all other stamps have the value in words and/or use the 6d or 5s notation for the value.
Lilac and Greens of 1883-4 have corner letters apart from the ½d which has none.
The Lilac and Greens issue is called the unified issue because it combines the low values (½d - 2d) with higher values (2½d - 1s), they also combine postage and revenue use.
Eight of the 1883 lilac and greens shared the same design but different colours
The scarce 9d stamp was issued first on 1 Aug 1883 followed by the rest of the series on 1 April 1884. Its scarcity can be seen from the numbers issued, only 6.5M compared to over 12M for each of the other stamps in the issue.
The unified stamps in horizontal format 2d, 2½d, 6d and 9d are in 12 rows of 20 with corner letters AA to LT. The stamps in vertical format are in 20 rows of 12 with corner letters AA to TL (note: stamps AM to LT are not possible in vertical format).
1887 Jun 21: Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee (50 years on the throne from 1837)
The 1887 Jubilee issue only had 10 stamps as the 4½d, 10d and £1 were issued later in 1892, 1890 and 1891. The two colour changes were issued in 1900.
The first two-colour stamp were 8 stamps in the 1887 Jubilee issue, 7 of these are also used in the KEVII definitives. The next two-colour stamp, was the 'Europa' commemorative issue, in 1960. The first truly multicoloured stamp was the 'Nature' issue in 1963
The first stamps to be printed on coloured paper were the 2½d, 3d and 6d values in the 1887 Jubilee issue. Only the 3d KEVII stamp is printed on coloured paper.
Only the £1 1891 in the Jubilee issue has corner letters, and it is the last stamp to have corner letters. The corner letters are large white rather than large coloured. The KEVII £1 has a similar design but no corner letters.
1894 Picture postcard introduced in Britain
There were over 34 billion penny lilacs printed between 1881 and 1901 making it the commonest British Victorian stamp, less than 21 billion penny reds were printed between 1841 and 1839.
Queen Victoria never ages on British stamps, the design of her head remained the same for 60 years.
Princess Victoria was born May 24 1819, she became Queen in 1837 aged 18, and died in Jan 22, 1901 aged 81, she reigned for 63 years.

After Queen Victoria 1901-

The designs of the King Edward VII definitives are mostly the same as the previous Jubilee issue, except the ½d, 1d, 2½ and 6d use a new design, the 7d is a new value.
1904 First stamp booklets issued
6 May 1910 King Edward VII dies exactly 70 years after the Penny Black was available for postage.
The Downey head design for King George V in 1911 is the first stamp where the monarch's head is three quarters left rather than full left, based on a photograph by the court photographers W & D Downey. This was later changed to full profile in 1912. The three quarters left profile reappeared with Queen Elizabeth II in 1952. Interestingly on the 1937 coronation stamp of King George VI in 1937 the heads are facing front, and in the Royal Silver Wedding issue of 1948 the king and queen's face to the right.
After King Edward VII died in 1910 his stamps continued to be used until 1913, the ½d and 1d Downey heads were issued in 1911 but the high value Seahorses in 1913
One Penny remained the postal rate for British letters until 1912
1914 Postage Dues first issued
The King or Queen's head always faces to the left on definitive stamps, on commemorative stamps there are exceptions (1937 coronation, 1948 silver wedding, 1952 1s 3d coronation etc.) From the Battle of Hastings 1s 3d issue in 1966 the queens head can often be seen facing right (Bridges 1968, Cathedrals 1969, Anniversaries 1971 etc).
The first animal to appear on British stamps is the lion which appears on the 1911 1d Mackennal and a dolphin is on the ½d, Bertram Mackennal also designed the seahorses in 1913.
The 1840 Penny Black was the first British stamp to be printed in black, the next was the £1 PUC in 1929.
The first person other than royalty to appear on a British stamp was William Shakespeare in 1964. But this ignores Britannia on the 1913 seahorses, George and the dragon on the 1929 £1 PUC.

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