We are fortified in our opinion that more than one kind of perforation was used for the same printing, by the impossibility of believing that one whole printing of the One Penny, red, was perforated B × A. This variety is so scarce, that the number of specimens known to us can literally be counted on the fingers of one hand. About three years ago we unearthed two specimens from a dealer’s stock. These were mounted on a card, and endorsed as “very scarce” in the handwriting of the late Mr. E. L. Pemberton. Two other specimens are known to us, and all these four are used. It is not possible to believe that 18,000 of these ever existed, and that is the least number of the One Penny ever printed at one time.
The Six Pence with the compound perforation is not known to us, but we think it is a variety that may possibly exist. The writer in the Stamp Collector’s Magazine, in referring to this compound, unfortunately does not specify the denomination of the stamp in which he had “occasionally” noticed it.
As stated in our note to Issue 1, it is quite possible that some of the consignments belonging to this issue, at any rate of the Six Pence, contained a sheet or sheets that missed being perforated.
Issue 4.
August 1866.
- 4d., deep bright blue.
- 1s., dark slate-grey; slight shades.
- 1s., greyish-purple.
The plates for these two values were prepared by Messrs. Perkins, Bacon & Co., early in July, 1866. They contained 30 stamps, arranged in three horizontal rows of 10, so were just half the size of those used for printing the One Penny and Six Pence values.
On July 28th a consignment of stamps printed from them was sent out to the Colony. This consisted of 500 sheets of each of the values; that is, 15,000 stamps of each denomination.
The stamps must have been immediately put in issue, as they were in use in August. They were chronicled in October, both by the Timbre-Poste and the Stamp Collector’s Magazine. The notice in the latter is as follows: “Within the last month or six weeks the number of St. Vincent stamps has been doubled by the emission of a Four Penny, blue, and Shilling, purple-black.” In the Timbre-Poste the colour of the Shilling is called “pourpre,” but in the same publication of April, 1867, M. Moens calls the colour “ardoise.” There is a further notice touching these stamps in the Stamp Collector’s Magazine of December, 1866, which is worth quoting in extenso, as it is a valuable contribution to our knowledge as regards both the colours and perforations of the stamps: “The newly-issued Four Pence and One Shilling have come over with the late mails in entire sheets. The colour of the former is a clear Prussian-blue, while the latter varies, one sheet we have examined being a purple, while the other is a deep slate without the tinge of red in it, which makes a purple. The normal colour is evidently one which requires great nicety in manipulation, a slight difference in mixing forming the two shades, which are very distinct. Like the Penny and Six Pence already known these stamps are on thin woven paper, without watermark, and perforated. The Four Pence is perforated by a machine which removes a little circular piece of the paper, like that in use for the English stamps, but the holes very much wider apart. The sheets of the Shilling stamps are also perforated by a machine, and show the following remarkable peculiarity in the perforation: the horizontal lines which sever the stamps from the rows above and beneath them are, as in the Four Pence, perforated by a succession of small circular holes cut or punched out, but the vertical lines dividing the stamps from their fellows side by side in the row are perforated (if that term be quite accurate) by an instrument fixed in the machine, which leaves a series of indentations much closer than the holes before alluded to, and which does not remove a particle of paper, except in a very occasional spot, hardly one in a thousand. On severing the stamps by tearing, a rough indented edge is left on each side; a ragged edge caused by the holes being too far apart is left above and below. A similar difference has been remarked by us in the former issues, specimens of each of which, completely perforated by either method, may be found, as also occasionally a copy showing both systems on the same stamp.”