Penny Black Postage Stamp

Features an image of the British "Penny Black" in mint condition on an old paper background. The Penny Black was the first adhesive postage stamp used in a public postal system. The Penny Black was issued in London on May 1, 1840. Before 1840 it was normal to pay for postage upon receipt of a letter. Postage was calculated by the number of sheets and the distance travelled. The idea of a pre-paid postage stamp was included in a set of proposals to reform the British postal system in 1837. Private postal systems may have used adhesive stamps before 1840. An engraving of Queen Victoria as a 15-year-old former princess was chosen as the design for the first stamp. It was believed that the design would be difficult to forge. All stamps of the United Kingdom British bear a picture or silhouette of the reigning monarch in lieu of the country name. All other postage stamps name their country of origin. The Penny Black was in use for only a little over a year. It was found that a red cancellation was hard to see on a black background and the red ink was easy to remove, making it possible to re-use stamps after they had been cancelled. In 1841,it was replaced by a stamp bearing the same design, the Penny Red, but printed with a reddish ink. The Penny Red was cancelled with black ink, much harder to remove. The Penny Black is not a very rare stamp. A total of 286,700 sheets with 68,808,000 stamps, were printed and a substantial number of these have survived, largely because envelopes were not normally used: letters in the form of letter sheets were folded and sealed, with the stamp and the address on the obverse. If the letter was kept, the stamp survived.