The Penny Black Stamp Store: The RM Phillips Collection

Monday 27 June 2011

The RM Phillips Collection

In 1965, Reginald M Phillips donated his award-winning collection of British Victorian stamps to the nation. The former National Postal Museum was in part established to house the collection. Today, The British Postal Museum & Archive has taken over responsibility for caring and developing access to the Phillips Collection.

The Phillips Collection is an essential resource for the understanding of postage stamps and philatelic research. It contains the world's very first, first day cover - that of the Penny Black. It also includes 1839 Treasury Essays for pre-paid postage, Rowland Hill letters and unique proofs and studies of stamps such as the Twopenny Blue and the Penny Red.

The online resource can be accessed here: http://catalogue.postalheritage.org.uk/dserve/phillips/Phillips.html

For specific resources on Victorian Stamps including the Penny Black:
http://catalogue.postalheritage.org.uk/dserve/dserve.exe?dsqServer=localhost&dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqDb=Catalog&dsqCmd=Overview.tcl&dsqSearch=%28AltRefNo=%27POSt%20150%27%29

Source: http://catalogue.postalheritage.org.uk/dserve/phillips/Phillips.html

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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.