Penny Black

The Penny Black was the world's first adhesive postage stamp used in a public postal system. It was issued in the United Kingdom on 1 May 1840 and could be used from 6 May, giving the public five days in which to simply look at it.^[1]

It cost one penny and it was black, and so it was named, after considerable thought, the Penny Black.

Before the stamp

Before 1840, postage was usually paid by the person receiving the letter, and the price depended on the distance and the number of sheets. The reforms proposed by the former schoolteacher Rowland Hill introduced a single price of one penny for a letter weighing up to half an ounce, whatever the distance. A letter could now cross the country for the same price as going next door, a bargain that people living next door felt was largely wasted on them.^[2]

Design

The stamp showed a profile of Queen Victoria and did not include the name of the country. British stamps still do not, on the reasonable grounds that, having gone first, there was nobody to be confused with.

The sheets had no perforations, so each stamp had to be cut out with scissors. Perforated stamps followed in 1854, ending fourteen years of national snipping.

Replacement

Used stamps were cancelled with a red mark. Red, it turned out, does not show up well on black, and the mark could be cleaned off so that the stamp could be used again. In 1841 the stamp was changed to red and the cancelling ink to black, which solved the problem by swapping everything.^[3]

See also

• Door – where letters end up
• Time – what the post used to take

References

1. Lick, P. (1990). Lick and Stick. Envelope Press. p. 1.
2. Postage, D. (2003). Next Door for a Penny. Letterbox Books.
3. Ink, R. (1999). “Red on Black: A Visibility Study”. Philately Quarterly 22.