One penny black
| One penny black | |
|---|---|
|
|
| output | |
| country | United Kingdom |
| Face value | 1 penny |
| First day | May 6, 1840 |
| Date of Expiry | |
| layout | |
| Motif | Queen Victoria |
| colour | black |
| draft | William Wyon |
| Sting | F. Heath |
| Print type | Intaglio printing |
| perforation | Cut |
| particularities | first postage stamp in the world |
| Edition | |
| Edition | 68,808,000 |
The world's first postage stamp originated in the United Kingdom on May 1, 1840 and became known as One Penny Black or Penny Black because the face value of the stamp is one penny and it was printed with black ink. It could be used from May 6th.
The stamp is imperforated and shows the profile of Queen Victoria . At the top is the word POSTAGE , at the bottom the nominal value ONE PENNY . A country designation, as is common nowadays, was not used because it did not seem necessary at the time, as the brand was the only one of its kind so far. The British brands still do not have a country name, but always show the profile of the respective monarch. The letters in the lower left and right corners indicate the mark position (row / column) of the stamp on the sheet.
The introduction of postage stamps was part of Rowland Hill's UK postal reform that now made it possible to have letters paid for by the sender. This was preceded by the Treasury Competition, through which the United Kingdom Treasury was waiting for ideas for the design of this stamp.
Steel plates were used to manufacture the One Penny Black, onto which the brand image was transferred 240 times using a so-called transfer roller . By treating these steel plates differently, between 9,000 and 38,000 sheets could be printed from each of the 11 plates. The exception is plate 1, of which 17,000 sheets were printed before hardening and another 30,000 sheets after hardening. The last inserted plate with the number 11 was prepared for prints by Penny Red . Due to the shortage of brands, it was also used for a short time for prints in black - for 700 sheets. This means that black stamps from this “red” record are by far the rarest and most expensive.
The “One Penny Black” is very popular with collectors.
The One Penny Black brand was in use for only a year before it was replaced by the Penny Red . Originally the cancellations were in red. However, it was soon found that the cancellations were fairly easy to remove. That's why the Post decided to use black cancellations. On a black stamp, however, it was difficult to see whether the stamp had already been canceled, so that many attempts were made to use the stamp a second time. On the other hand, the black postmark was more clearly visible on the Penny Red.
literature
- Andreas Hahn (Ed.): The Invention of the Postage Stamp (text in German and English), Museum Foundation for Post and Telecommunication 2008, in cooperation with the FgGB (Research Foundation Great Britain eV), 126 pages, ISBN 978-3-9808448-9-5
- Traugott Haefeli-Meylan: The origin of the postage stamp and its worldwide distribution , Mondo-Verlag, Lausanne 1985, 167 pages
- Leon N. Williams: Encyclopaedia of Rare and Famous Stamps, Volume 1: The Stories. Feldman, Geneva 1993, ISBN 0-89192-435-3 , p. 91 ff
- The penny postage system and the first postage stamps. In: Collector Express , issue No. 9/1990, pages 322 to 324 and No. 10/1990, pages 350 to 352
- Anthony G. Rigo de Righi: The Story of the Penny Black and its Contemporaries . National Postal Museum, London 1980, ISBN 0-9500018-7-2 , 56 pp.
