The Penny Black Stamp Store: The Design of the Penny Black

Tuesday 21 June 2011

The Design of the Penny Black

The design for the adhesive labels was based on the head of Queen Victoria sculpted by William Wyon for his so-called City Medal commemorating Queen Victoria’s visit to the City of London in November 1837 (shown below). This was based on a sketch when she was only 15 and was to remain as her image on stamps to the end of her reign. Wyon’s medal was sketched by Henry Corbould and this was used by Charles and Frederick Heath to engrave the head on to a die for printing by line engraving.

Source: http://postalheritage.org.uk/page/pennyblack

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A Brief History

Before 1st May 1840, posting a letter was a very complicated and expensive affair. It could cost the equivalent of a days wage, and it was charged by how many sheets of paper were used and how far it had to travel. Normally the recipient had to pay the cost.

Sir Roland Hill was responsible for reforming the British postal system, and as part of this a competition was held for the public to design the world’s first adhesive postage stamp. However none of the entries were thought suitable, so instead they used the profile sketch of a then 15 year old Queen Victoria. This image was used on stamps until the end of her reign. Because the Penny Black was the first postage stamp in the world, it did not show a country of origin, and to this day British stamps are the only stamps in the world that do not state what country they are from.

However, the Penny Black only remained in circulation for a year, as it was soon found that it was possible to remove the ink of the red cancellation mark and re-use the stamp, so the Treasury switched to the Penny Red and black cancellation ink.