|
Penny Red Queen Victoria issued
in 1841
Imperforate
Authentic, original old stamp
The 1d Red
was a development of the Penny Black with the colour being
changed from black to red so that the new black Maltese Cross
cancellation could be clearly seen.
One Penny
Red issued in 1841 to replace the Penny Black (the first issue
with perforations from 1848)
In the
early years, from 1840 until 1850, all stamps were issued
imperforate, and had to be cut from the sheet with scissors or
knife.
Plate configuration: ML
The upper
corners were occupied by stars.
Each stamp had unique letters AA, AB etc.
in its lower corners, so that its position on the plate could be
identified:
Plate configuration
AA AB AC AD AE AF AG AH AI AJ AK AL
BA BB BC BD BE BF BG BH BI BJ BK BL
• • • • • • • • • • • •
• • • • • • • • • • • •
• • • • • • • • • • • •
SA SB SC SD SE SF SG SH SI SJ SK SL
TA TB TC TD TE TF TG TH TI TJ TK TL
The world's first
adhesive postage stamp
The Penny
Black and Red were the world's first adhesive postage stamps
used in a public postal system. It was issued in Britain on 1
May 1840, for official use from 6 May of that year and features
a profile of the Queen Victoria. All London post offices
received official issues of the new stamps but other offices
throughout the United Kingdom did not, continuing to accept
postage payments in cash only for a period. Post offices such as
those in Bath began offering the stamp unofficially after 2 May
1840. The colour was changed from black to red because of
difficulty in seeing a cancellation mark on the Penny Black; a
black cancel was readily visible on a Penny Red.
Penny Red Queen Victoria
The
Penny Red was a British postage stamp, issued in 1841. It
succeeded the Penny Black and continued as the main type of
postage stamp in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
until 1879, with only minor changes to the design during that
time. The colour was changed from black to red because of
difficulty in seeing a cancellation mark on the Penny Black; a
black cancel was readily visible on a Penny Red.
History
Initially, some of the same plates that were used to print the
Penny Black were used to print the Penny Red and about 21
billion Penny Reds were printed by Messrs. Perkins, Bacon & Co.
Initially, the stamp had no perforations, and had to be cut from
the sheet using scissors in the same manner as for the Penny
Black and the early printings of the Two pence blue.
Perforations, (experimental gauge 16), first came into use in
1850 and were officially adopted in 1854 (in the same size as
the experimental issue). The experimental issue can be
distinguished from the general issue as the later was applied to
stamp which used a different alphabet type for the letters in
the lower corners. Each stamp has unique corner letters AA, AB,
AC ... AL etc., so its position on the plate can be identified.
In January 1855, the perforation size was changed from 16 to 14
as it was found that the sheets were coming apart too easily.
The reduced size allowed the sheets to remain intact until
pressure was applied to force the separation.
The stamps were printed in sheets of 240 (20 rows of 12 stamps),
so one row cost 1 shilling and a complete sheet one pound. This,
240 stamps per sheet, configuration continued with all British
postage stamps issued until 1971 when decimal currency was
introduced when the sheet size was changed to 200, (20 rows of
10 stamps) making the lowest value denomination (half penny) one
pound per sheet.
Henry
Archer
In
1847, Henry Archer of the United Kingdom constructed the first (rouletting)
machine, the "Archer Roulette", to separate stamps. His plan,
submitted to the Postmaster General on 1 October 1847, was
referred to the departments of the General Post Office and the
Inland Revenue. Two such machines were built. After
experimentation both machines proved to be failures. From one
machine a few stamps from Plates 70 and 71 have survived. This
machine consisted of lancet-shaped blades working on a fly-press
principle and piercing the paper with a series of cuts.
Archer then abandoned this approach in favour
of perforation, a process which used rows of small round pins to
punch out the holes. In 1848 Archer patented his perforation
machine which worked on the "stroke" principle. The arrangement
of the pins enabled the top and sides of each stamp across the
row to be perforated in a single operation, and this became
known as "comb" perforation. Perforation trials were conducted
in 1849 and 1850 under the auspices of the British Government
and stamps from these trials were first issued towards the end
of 1850. The Archer machine proved the viability of the process
but never entered service. Archer's patent for his perforating
machine (no. 12,340 of 1848, dated May 23, 1849) was purchased
for £4,000 in June 1853.[1] New machines based on Archer's
principles were constructed by David Napier and Son Ltd; these
were initially used in October 1853 for revenue stamps and from
January 1854 for postage stamps.
Chronology
-
10 February 1841 -
first issue: colour of 1d stamp changed from black to
red-brown.
-
24 February 1854 -
perforations 16 introduced.
-
January 1855 -
perforation size changed from 16 to 14.
-
15 May 1855 -
watermark changed from small crown to large crown.
-
1858 - letters in
all four corners, colour lake-red
-
1 April 1864 -
letters on all four corners and plate number engraved on
each stamp from plate 71 onwards.
-
27 October 1879 -
last plate (225) put to press.
-
3 December 1879 -
contract to print the Penny Red formally ended.
The Jacob Perkins' press, that printed
the Penny Black/Red and the 2d Blue, in the British Library
Philatelic Collections. |