There is a green stamp of five cents value for registered letters addressed to the United States.
There is a blue stamp of eight cents value for registered letters addressed to the United Kingdom.
These stamps are to apply exclusively to the registration charges, and the postage rates on registered letters are to be prepaid by the ordinary postage stamps.
It is believed that the use of these distinctive stamps for the registration charges, will tend to give registered letters additional security against the risk which is sometimes felt of the registration escaping observation, when such letters are dealt with hurriedly or handled at night, whilst passing through the post.
The special registration stamps are too well known to need any particular description, especially as they are excellently illustrated as Numbers 54, 55 and 56 on [Plate III]. Like the ordinary postage stamps, they are engraved on steel and were originally printed in sheets of 50, ten horizontal rows of five stamps each, which made a sheet of nearly the same size, only turned through an angle of 90°, as the ordinary sheet of 100 postage stamps. The imprint was the same as the second type employed for the "small" cents issue—"British American Bank Note Co. Montreal" in a pearled frame—and likewise appeared four times on the sheet, as already fully described in the chapter dealing with that issue.[193] The denomination of the stamp was also expressed as TWO CENTS, in the shaded Roman capitals which we found in the case of the postage stamps, over the first stamp in the top row of that value, but with the 5 cent the word FIVE alone appears. The 8 cent we have not seen. On the 2 cent there is also a large numeral 2, 7½ mm. high, over the last stamp in the top row (number 5) but the 5 cent has none.
The normal colors for the stamps were:—
- 2 cents, orange varying through orange red to vermilion.
- 5 cents, a slightly yellow green varying from pale to dark.
- 8 cents, both bright and dull blue.
The stamps were printed upon the same ordinary white wove paper as was used for the contemporary postage stamps. The variation from thin to thick quality is found in the case of the 2 cent and 5 cent stamps, but very little variation in the 8 cent stamp. This is explained by the fact that there were probably but two printings of the latter stamp, 100,000 having been delivered by the manufacturers according to the Postmaster General's Report for 30th June, 1875, and 25,000 more according to the next year's report.