Issue 8.
June 1872.
- 1s., bright rose-red, shades.
- 1s., deep rose-red, slight shades.
- 1s., dull red, shades, sometimes with a tinge of yellow in it.
We now come to a series of issues of the One Shilling, which present a good deal of difficulty to collectors, because of the number of colours and shades they contain, all rather closely resembling each other. They are not easy to describe in print, so as to be properly understood, owing chiefly to the great divergence of opinion on the subject of the names of colours, when these are closely allied.
On April 13th, 1872, Messrs. Perkins, Bacon & Co. despatched 9000 stamps in 300 sheets of the One Shilling value printed in a colour they call in their books “pink,” but this is a description we put out of court at once, especially as the sample stamp in the firm’s books is a rose-red one.
In addition to the sample stamp, Messrs. Perkins, Bacon & Co. possess an imperforate proof sheet of the stamp in the same colour, but upon unwatermarked paper. This sheet is inscribed on the margin “Patterns for colour. Postage Pink, small quantity of Drop carmine-lake about ½ oz. for 300 sheets.” The technical name of the colour appears consequently to be “carmine-lake.”
The first chronicle of the issue was in the American Journal of Philately of August, 1872, which was quoted by the Timbre-Poste of September. The Philatelical Journal of September says that they have accidentally omitted to chronicle it in August. We give June as the probable date of issue.
As regards the colour of the stamp, the Philatelist of October, when chronicling its issue, says that “the colour is precisely that of the rose penny,” but in the following month it adds to this statement that other specimens have been seen, “all deeper in hue than the penny ones of the same colour.” This, as far as it goes, agrees exactly with our own experience, which is that there are specimens in shades of bright rose-red, all of which may be found in the bright rose-red One Penny of Issues 1 and 3, but that there are others in a deeper rose-red of a slightly different colour, never seen in the One Penny, and due to something more than mere depth of shade. Besides these two colours we find a third, which we have called “dull red,” differing from both of them, and in which a faint tinge of yellow is sometimes to be seen, as if it were turning somewhat towards vermilion. There was only one printing made of this One Shilling, rose-red or dull red, but we have already seen in the case of the One Shilling of Issue 4 that more than one colour may exist in the same printing, from causes connected with the mixing of the ink. The paper of this issue is sometimes found more or less toned by the action of the gum, which seems always to be yellow, and never white; this affects the appearance of some specimens, and adds considerably to the difficulty of limiting the number of colours even to three.
By far the greater number of the stamps of this issue are perforated B. We have seen very few indeed perforated B × A, and all these have been bright rose-red in colour. The only periodical which in chronicling the stamp gave the perforation was the Philatelical Journal, which says that it is “perf. circ. 14½ to 15½” which we would call A; but in 1872 compound perforations were ignored, and the usual plan was to measure only the long side of a stamp, so this record of the perforation probably corresponds to our B × A, as the stamp does not exist perforated A alone, so far as we have been able to discover. The sample stamp kept by the printers is perforated B.