Penny Red
Encyclopedia
Postage stamps and postal history of Great Britain
Postage stamps and postal history of Great Britain surveys postal history from the United Kingdom and the postage stamps issued by that country and its various historical territories until the present day....
, issued in 1841. It succeeded the Penny Black
Penny Black
The Penny Black was the world's first adhesive postage stamp 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 continued as the main type of postage stamp
Postage stamp
A postage stamp is a small piece of paper that is purchased and displayed on an item of mail as evidence of payment of postage. Typically, stamps are made from special paper, with a national designation and denomination on the face, and a gum adhesive on the reverse side...
in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....
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 of the Penny Red
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 & CoPerkins Bacon
Messrs. Perkins, Bacon & Co was a printer of books, bank notes and postage stamps, most notable for printing the Penny Black, the world's first adhesive postage stamps, in 1840.- Origins :...
. Initially, the stamp had no perforation
Perforation
A perforation is a small hole in a thin material or web. There is usually more than one perforation in an organized fashion, where all of the holes are called a perforation...
s, 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
Two pence blue
The Two Penny Blue was the world’s second official postage stamp, issued after the Penny Black.It was issued in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and was first sold to the public at the London Inland revenue office in the afternoon of May 8th 1840. Except for its denomination of the...
. 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
Shilling
The shilling is a unit of currency used in some current and former British Commonwealth countries. The word shilling comes from scilling, an accounting term that dates back to Anglo-Saxon times where it was deemed to be the value of a cow in Kent or a sheep elsewhere. The word is thought to derive...
and a complete sheet one pound
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
. This, 240 stamps per sheet, configuration continued with all British postage stamps issued until 1971 when decimal currency was introduced
Decimal Day
Decimal Day was the day the United Kingdom and Ireland decimalised their currencies.-Old system:Under the old currency of pounds, shillings and pence, the pound was made up of 240 pence , with 12 pence in a shilling and 20 shillings in a...
when the sheet size was changed to 200, (20 rows of 10 stamps) making the lowest value denomination, (half pence), one pound per sheet.
Plate numbers
On 1 April 1864, the stamp was issued with the plate number engraved in the design, in the left and right side lace work. At this time, the stars in the top corners were also replaced with the same check letters as used in the lower corners, but in reverse order.Because of wear, over 400 different plates were used to print the Penny Red. Two different basic watermark
Watermark
A watermark is a recognizable image or pattern in paper that appears as various shades of lightness/darkness when viewed by transmitted light , caused by thickness or density variations in the paper...
s were used for the paper, small crown, (on the early issues) and large crown, introduced on 15 May 1855. The first stamps printed on the large crown watermarked paper showed two small vertical lines in the central portion of the crown. Later printings showed a revised watermark on which these central lines are not present.
The last Penny Reds
The era of the Penny Red came to its close at the end of 1879, along with Perkins Bacon's contract. It was superseded by the Penny Venetian RedPenny Venetian Red
The Penny Venetian Red was a British postage stamp equal to the value of one penny. Issued in 1880, it was designed and surface-printed by security printing company De La Rue...
printed by De La Rue
De La Rue
De La Rue plc is a British security printing, papermaking and cash handling systems company headquartered in Basingstoke, Hampshire. It also has a factory on the Team Valley Trading Estate, Gateshead, and other facilities at Loughton, Essex and Bathford, Somerset...
, which was in use for a little over a year before being succeeded in turn by the long-lived Penny Lilac
Penny Lilac
The Penny Lilac was the basic penny postage stamp of Great Britain from its first issue on 12 July 1881 and was used until 1901. It superseded the short lived Penny Venetian Red because the Customs and Inland Revenue Act of 1881 necessitated new stamps that were also valid as revenue stamps, and so...
.
Chronology
- February 1841 - colour of 1d stamp changed from black to red.
- 1854 - perforations introduced.
- January 1855 - perforation size changed from 16 to 14.
- 15 May 1855 - watermark changed from small crown to large crown.
- 1 April 1864 - letters on all four corners and plate number engraved on each stamp from plate 72 onwards.
- 27 October 1879 - last plate (225) put to press.
- 3 December 1879 - contract to print the Penny Red formally ended.
See also
- Archer Roulette
- List of British postage stamps
- List of notable postage stamps
- Postage stamps and postal history of Great BritainPostage stamps and postal history of Great BritainPostage stamps and postal history of Great Britain surveys postal history from the United Kingdom and the postage stamps issued by that country and its various historical territories until the present day....