Portal:Philately/Stamp of the month archive
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[edit] Stamp of the month archive
This is a copy of previously used postage stamp information.
If replacing the main portal page with a new stamp. please make sure the old information is recorded here for possible future.
[edit] Penny Black
The Penny Black was the world's first official adhesive postage stamp, issued by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland on May 1, 1840, for use from May 6.
The idea of an adhesive stamp to indicate prepayment of postage was part of Rowland Hill's 1837 proposal to reform the British postal system. A companion idea which Hill disclosed on February 13, 1837 at a government inquiry was that of a separate sheet which folded to form an enclosure or envelope for carrying letters. At that time postage was charged by the sheet and distance involved and the inquiry Hill noted that the stamp idea might obviate the envelope.
[edit] Inverted Jenny
The Inverted Jenny was a postage stamp, issued by the United States on May 10, 1918. The image of a Curtiss JN-4 airplane in the center of the design was accidentally printed upside-down. One sheet, of 100 stamps, was found at a post office and bought by a collector on May 14 and sold soon after for US$15,000.
Because the stamp was printed in two colors, each sheet had to be fed through the printing press twice, a process that resulted in the invert error. Several misprinted sheets were found during the production process and destroyed. This error is one of the most prized in all philately; as of 2003, an inverted Jenny would typically sell for around US$150,000.
[edit] British Guiana 1c magenta
The British Guiana 1c magenta is among the rarest of the world's postage stamps, issued in limited numbers in British Guiana (now Guyana) in 1856. Only one specimen is now known to exist.
The anticipated arrival of stamps never arrived by ship in 1856, so the local postmaster, E.T.E. Dalton, authorised a printer, Joseph Baum and William Dallas, of Georgetown, to print an emergency issue of three stamps. Dalton gave some specifications about the design, but the printer chose to add a ship image of his own design on the stamp series. The one copy known to exist is in used condition and has been cut into an octagonal shape. A signature, in accordance to Dalton's policy, can be seen on the left hand side. Although dirty and heavily postmarked on the upper left hand side, it is nonetheless regarded as priceless.
An unsubstantiated rumour developed in the 1920s that a second copy of the stamp had been discovered, and that the then owner of the stamp, Arthur Hind, quietly purchased this second copy and destroyed it.
