Key type stamps are stamps of a uniform design that were widely used by colonial territories in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Origins

The idea was invented by

Perkins 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. {{Infobox , above = Details on the mode of preventing the forgery o ...

who used it to print stamps for

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...

(1851),

Barbados Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands. It occupies an area of and has a population of about 287,000 (2019 estimate). ...

(1852) and

Mauritius Mauritius ( ; french: Maurice, link=no ; mfe, label=Mauritian Creole, Moris ), officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean about off the southeast coast of the African continent, east of Madagascar. It incl ...

(1858), all featuring the same

Britannia Britannia () is the national personification of Britain as a helmeted female warrior holding a trident and shield. An image first used in classical antiquity, the Latin ''Britannia'' was the name variously applied to the British Isles, Great ...

design.

Key plate stamps

The idea was refined by

De La Rue De La Rue plc (, ) is a British company headquartered in Basingstoke, England, that designs and produces banknotes, secure polymer substrate and banknote security features (including security holograms, security threads and security printe ...

in 1879 when the printing process was split into two through the use of a

key plate In printing, a key plate is the plate which prints the detail in an image. When printing color images by combining multiple colors of inks, the colored inks usually do not contain much image detail. The key plate, which is usually impressed using ...

(or ''head plate'') for the bulk of the design and a separate ''duty plate'' for the name of the colony and the value. Mackay, James. ''Stamp Collecting: Philatelic Terms Illustrated''. 4th edition. London:

Stanley Gibbons The Stanley Gibbons Group plc is a company quoted on the London Stock Exchange specialising in the retailing of collectable postage stamps and similar products. The group is incorporated in London. The company is a major stamp dealer and philat ...

, 2003, p.76. These are often known as ''key plate stamps''. While ''key type'' stamps are always of one colour, ''key plate'' stamps are bi-coloured. This method has the advantage that most of the design remains the same in each of a stamp series with only the value, name and colours changing. Key plate stamps were used extensively by Great Britain, Germany, France, Spain and Portugal.Sutton, R.J. & K.W. Anthony. ''The Stamp Collector's Encyclopaedia''. 6th edition. London: Stanley Paul, 1966, p.165.

Revenues

Key plates were also a ubiquitous feature of

revenue stamp A revenue stamp, tax stamp, duty stamp or fiscal stamp is a (usually) adhesive label used to designate collected taxes or fees on documents, tobacco, alcoholic drinks, drugs and medicines, playing cards, hunting licenses, firearm registration, ...

s of Burma/Myanmar,

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

Malta Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...

and

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

. These had a tablet at the bottom, and this was appropriated (overprinted to indicate the type of use), e.g. Consular Service, Contract Note, Notarial, Special Adhesive, Stocks & Shares. Malta was the only country to also issue unappropriated stamps (with the bottom tablet still blank). File:Transfer Duty stamps 1891-92-93.jpg, British 1891-1893 Queen Victoria revenue stamps appropriated for Transfer Duty. File:Ireland Petty Sessions - Dog Licence 1903.jpg, British 1903 King Edward VII revenue stamp appropriated for Petty Sessions for use in Ireland (further overprinted for Dog Licence). File:2 shilling passport stamp.jpg, Irish 1925 Harp revenue stamp appropriated for Passports. File:India insurance revenue stamps.jpg, Indian 1937 King George VI revenue stamp appropriated for Insurance. File:Malta 1954 Queen Elizabeth II revenue stamp.png, Malta, 1954 Queen Elizabeth II revenue stamp with an unappropriated tablet at the bottom.

Origins

Key plate stamps

Revenues

See also

References

Further reading