Welcome to the world’s most famous stamp.
But how well do you know the Penny Black?
Did you know it’s not really the world’s first postal stamp, for example?
We owe the name to hand stamps, which were used for pioneering postal services like the London Penny Post 160 years before the first adhesive, “adhesive postage stamp used in a public postal system” (thank you Wikipedia) was used.
Here are 7 more Penny Black facts you need to know.
1 - Queen Victoria’s profile took seven years and four artists to make it onto the Penny Black
In 1834 William Wyon (whose work was on many coins) made a cameo model of Queen Victoria’s head. She was then 15.
Wyon's head on a City Medal.
Henry Corbould, a distinguished artist, made a sketch of the head, that Charles Heath engraved to become the printed image we see today. Cobould was paid £12 for his work.
In a weird coincidence, Henry Cobould’s son married Charles Heath’s granddaughter.
2 - The Penny Black was a failure
If its broadest purpose was to make a mass postal system that sparked a communications revolution then the Penny Black succeeded.
But black was the wrong colour.
Stamps were cancelled - marked as used - with an ink stamp (that was supposed to be red, but in reality was the colour that the tastes and skills of local post masters dictated). Money-conscious folk could relatively easily disguise or remove that cancellation and use the stamp again.
A group of Penny Reds, in use to replace the Penny Black from early 1841.
The stamp was introduced on May 1, 1840 (for use from the 5th) and replaced with the penny red in February 1841.
3 - It’s both rare and common
Because it was withdrawn so quickly the Penny Black is much rarer than the succeeding Penny Red, and so usually more valuable.
But, because it was produced for universal use and designed to make postage accessible it was still produced in huge numbers: 68, 808,000 to be precise.
Around 2% of those (1.3 million) are probably still in existence. That’s a better survival rate than for most stamps.
4 - There are 2,880 different Penny Blacks
The Letters H E exactly locate the stamp on the plate.
In the bottom corners of your Penny Black are letters (called “check letters) that locate them on the plate that printed them. Each plate used a grid of letters that run from A to L horizontally, with columns running down from A to T, giving 240 uniquely identified positions.
There were 12 plates. These are harder to identify, but experts can do it, in part by using differences in the check letters, which were hand stamped onto the plate.
The 240 positions on 12 plates mean there are 2,880 different Penny Blacks among ordinary issued stamps.
Is your Penny Black valuable? That might well depend on which of those plates it was printed from and which position it was in. There were no perforations on these sheets and hand-cutting in busy post offices was often imprecise. So condition, where and when it was used if it was used, margin size and more will play a role.
5 - An elderly, hard-up American helped make the first British stamp
Jacob Perkins was somewhat hard done by in the British printing world.
The US Post Office was somewhat slow off the mark in matching this British innovation. The first US stamps didn’t come out until 1847.
But a US import to London helped make the Penny Black.
Perkins, Bacon and Petch printed the stamps.
Jacob Perkins was an American, born in 1766 (in a then British colony) and had been a pioneer of security printing for banknotes. He invented the steel engraving process that could produce apparently “unforgeable” notes.
Sadly, a US bank crash wrecked his finances and at the age of 50 he sold his business and lucrative American patents and came to the UK to start again. The Bank of England liked his work, but not the fact that he had been born overseas and refused to employ him.
He had retired and was 70 years old by the time Rowland Hill engaged his former company to print the first stamps using his innovative machinery.
6 - The Penny Black has a twin that’s more valuable
A lovely shade of blue on the Penny Black's sister's first issue.
The Penny Black is the world’s first stamp.
Yes. But also not really.
While the first modern postal system was extremely simple it did have cost differentiation.
The Penny Black was sold from May 1, 1840 and valid from May 6.
Its twin, the 2d blue, was also valid from May 6, 1840, when it was first sold at the London Inland Revenue Office.
Apart from the colour, it’s identical to the black. Just 6,460,000 were printed from only two plates between May 1 and 29 August 29, 1840.
Standard 2d Blues are now substantially more valuable than their more famous counterparts. It was replaced with a 2d stamp in a different shade of blue.
7 - They held a competition to design the Penny Black and no-one won
Benjamin Cheverton proposed these lovely, lacy designs.
The design of the Penny Black is generally loved. And not just because it was a first.
It’s a good, functional (colour/cancellation issues aside) design and has lasted superbly well.
It's very appealing too. The Victoria profile remained in place for the rest of her reign and the shape and features of the stamp are recognizably still in place today.
But it was a last minute replacement for the model that should have been chosen from an open design competition.
2,600 entries wrestled with the problem of a postal payment system that would defeat forgers and work at mass scale.
Four were considered good enough to win £100. They were Henry Cole, Charles Whiting, Benjamin Cheverton, Francis Coffin and James Bogardus (entering jointly).
And then Rowland Hill used his own initiative to go with the Wyon head and Perkins and Bacon engraved background.
Entries in the competition and tests of the best attempts - “The Treasury Essays” - are now a valuable area of collecting in their own right.
Penny Blacks for sale today
Penny Blacks fascinate every stamp collector.
And they are more accessible than many believe.
