The Prince Consort Essay was a surface printed printer's sample stamp created in 1851Prince Consort essay.
Stamp Printing and Perforations, British Postal Museum & Archive, 2013. Retrieved 1 July 2013
Archived here.
/ref> as an example of the surface printed stamps that

Henry Archer Henry Archer (1799 – 2 March 1863) was the son of an Ireland, Irish landowner and was educated at Trinity College, Dublin. He was called to the Irish Bar and spent most of his time between North Wales and London. Ffestiniog Railway In rail ...

proposed to print and perforate under contract with the British government at a lower price than the current printing firm of

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 ...

. The Prince Consort stamps were provided by the artist Robert Edward Branston, from an engraving executed by

Samuel William Reynolds Samuel William Reynolds (4 July 1773 – 13 August 1835) was a mezzotint Engraving, engraver, Landscape painting, landscape painter and landscape gardener. Reynolds was a popular engraver in both Britain and France and there are over 400 examp ...

. Although commonly known as an

essay An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal a ...

, the stamp was not really an essay as it was never intended that a postage stamp be produced based on the design, nor was it an un-adopted design. It is more accurately described as a printer's sample stamp, or ''dummy stamp''.

Background

The first essay depicted

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 21 ...

, but Edwin Hill cautioned Reynolds not to make any essays with the Queen's portrait. Therefore, Prince Albert's portrait was used instead. It is noted that the essays have the check letters "F" and "J" and it is believed by some scholars that they are the initials of Ferdinand Joubert, who designed Britain's first surface printed postage stamp, the 1855 Four Pence stamp 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 ...

, and who may have played a role in the creation of the Prince Consort Essay.

Production

The Prince Consort Essay was printed from electros taken from one master plate of 12. The twelve positions all have unique characteristics. The essays were printed in red, red-brown, black and blue, in sheets of 36 (3 horizontal rows of 12), in sheets of 240 and in sheets of 252 (21 panes of 12). The essays are scarce and there are approximately 25 recorded examples perforated 16 by Archer. The majority are

imperforate For postage stamps, separation is the means by which individual stamps are made easily detachable from each other. Methods of separation include: # perforation: cutting rows and columns of small holes # rouletting: small horizontal and vert ...

, and there is one rouletted example in the

Royal Philatelic Collection The Royal Philatelic Collection is the postage stamp collection of the British royal family. It is the most comprehensive collection of items related to the philately of the United Kingdom and the British Commonwealth, with many unique pieces. ...

Collecting

Imperforate copies are available to collectors, typically for around several hundred pounds. There are approximately 36 perforated examples recorded and these sell for much higher prices. Of the 36 examples, 3 are in brown, three are in blue (the latest realized £38,080.00 at auction) and the remainder are in black.

References

External links

Full sheet of the Prince Consort Essay in black.
British Postal Museum & Archive R.M. Phillips Collection Vol.XXII. {{Commons category, Prince Consort Essay Postage stamps of the United Kingdom Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha