1840.
1855.
1862.
1865.
Several correspondents have asked me about plate numbers on English stamps, and also the meaning of the letters in the corners of the same stamps. First, as to plate numbers. For many years the plate numbers on English adhesive stamps were printed on the margin only, hence they were cut off the imperforated sheets, and torn off the perforated sheets, and are as scarce to-day as the early U.S. numbers. By reference to the one shilling, 1865, illustrated below, the figure 1 is found on either side of the portrait. This signifies that the stamp has been printed on plate No. 1 of the one shilling. Of the higher values few plates were required, but of the one-penny stamp about 150 plates were necessary. I hope to give in an early number of the Round Table a fairly complete list of the English one-penny stamp varieties, as now collected in England. It will be very interesting to see how scientific stamp-collecting has become.
As to the letters in the angles. The one penny and twopenny English issued in 1840 had letters in the lower corners only, the fourpenny, sixpenny, and one shilling had no letters. In 1865 all the stamps were issued with letters in all four corners. The lower values were printed in sheets of 240 stamps, the first stamp bearing the letters A B in the upper corners, the next A C, the next A D, etc. In the lower corners the letters were reversed; thus a stamp marked F D in the upper corners was marked D F in the lower corners. In the rooms of the Philatelic Society, New York, complete sheets of the one-penny English stamp are to be seen, each plate made up of 240 separate stamps. The labor involved in making up these sheets was enormous, necessitating the examination of many thousands of stamps.