The Penny Red was a British postage stamp, issued in 1841. It succeeded the

Penny Black The Penny Black was the world's first adhesive postage stamp used in a public postal system. It was first issued in the United Kingdom (referred to in philatelic circles as Great Britain), on 1 May 1840, but was not valid for use until 6 May. ...

and continued as the main type of

postage stamp A postage stamp is a small piece of paper issued by a post office, postal administration, or other authorized vendors to customers who pay postage (the cost involved in moving, insuring, or registering mail), who then affix the stamp to the fa ...

in the

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was a sovereign state in the British Isles that existed between 1801 and 1922, when it included all of Ireland. It was established by the Acts of Union 1800, which merged the Kingdom of Great B ...

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 cancellation mark was readily visible on a Penny Red.

History

Initially, the same plates used to print the Penny Black were used to print the Penny Red. About 21 billion Penny Reds were printed by Messrs. Perkins, Bacon & Co. The stamp had no

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 collectively are called a ''perforation''. The process of creating perforations is called perfor ...

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 The Two Penny Blue or The Two Pence Blue was the world's second official postage stamp, produced in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and issued after the Penny Black. Initial printing took place from 1 May 1840, and in all 6, ...

. 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 perforated 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 The shilling is a historical coin, and the name of a unit of modern currencies formerly used in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, other British Commonwealth countries and Ireland, where they were generally equivalent to 12 pence o ...

and a complete sheet one pound. This 240 stamps per sheet configuration continued with all low-value British postage stamps issued until

decimalisation Decimalisation or decimalization (see spelling differences) is the conversion of a system of currency or of weights and measures to units related by powers of 10. Most countries have decimalised their currencies, converting them from non-decimal ...

, when the sheet size was changed to 200, (20 rows of 10 stamps) making the lowest value denomination (half penny) 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 A watermark is an identifying image or pattern in paper that appears as various shades of lightness/darkness when viewed by transmitted light (or when viewed by reflected light, atop a dark background), caused by thickness or density variations ...

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. Stamps from some of the individual plate numbers, such as plate 77, are very rare and in 2016, an example from this plate was auctioned for £495,000 STG.

Withdrawal

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 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. It superseded the Penny Red that had been used in Great Britain ...

printed 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 ...

, which was in use for a little over a year before being succeeded in turn by the long-lived

Penny Lilac A penny is a coin ( pennies) or a unit of currency (pl. pence) in various countries. Borrowed from the Carolingian denarius (hence its former abbreviation d.), it is usually the smallest denomination within a currency system. Presently, it is t ...

. Since then, the stamp has become in demand amongst stamp collectors.

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.http://www.pennystars.comPenny Red at pennystars. Retrieved 10 November 11.

References and sources

;Notes ;Sources *

Stanley Gibbons Ltd 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 ...

, ''Specialised Stamp Catalogue Volume 1: Queen Victoria'' * J.B. Seymour & C. Gardiner-Hill ''The Postage Stamps of Great Britain'' Part 1 (Royal Philatelic Society London, 3rd. edition, 1967) * W.R.D. Wiggins (Ed.) ''The Postage Stamps of Great Britain'' Part 2 (Royal Philatelic Society London, 2nd edition, 1962)

External links

Examples of Penny Reds from the Phillips Collection
(via

Wayback Machine The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web founded by the Internet Archive, a nonprofit based in San Francisco, California. Created in 1996 and launched to the public in 2001, it allows the user to go "back in time" and see ...