The Penny Black is not so rare! by Stephen Osborne (PTS)

Is the penny black ubiquitous? Yes! Is it iconic? Yes! Is it rare? Not so much! However, as the estate agents in the UK emphasise ‘location, location, location’, the criterion for used penny blacks is ‘condition, condition, condition’. When Sir Rowland Hill first came up with the idea of a uniform penny postage in the late 1830s, finally realised by the penny black / 2d blue in 1840, the printing numbers for the penny black alone were very large, a total printing of 286,700 sheets with 240 stamps to a sheet, making a grand total of 68,808,000 stamps!

Some rarity…. Of course many millions were destroyed or lost over the decades - one lady, so stamp mythology has it, wallpapered her room with penny blacks - I am still waiting for that to be discovered.

However, the reality is that today you can buy used penny blacks in relatively poor condition between £20 to £30 each. Furthermore, there has been mass promotion of penny blacks in the forms of tiepins, cufflinks and the like by entrepreneurs. Promoters trying to cash in on the international status of the first stamp ever printed and finding a market.

However, if you have a mint penny black in good condition, it can go for several thousands of pounds. Nevertheless beware, many of these being offered as such are often cleaned used stamps with the Maltese Cross cancel chemically removed. Personally, I wouldn’t touch a mint penny black without photographed signed certificates and I would advise my readers to do the same.

Finally, there are 11 different plates of the penny black, all with very subtle differences in the design, of which one plate, the 11, is worth nearly as much as all the others put together – one of the best ways of distinguishing this is the 7 o’clock flaw in the design by the word postage at the top – more on that in another article. Now look behind your old wallpaper and contact me on that - or any other questions about stamps and postal history. When you wish to sell, you can meet Stephen on the first Sunday of every month, at the Sussex Room, Norfolk Arms Hotel, High Street, Arundel, BN18 9AB. Between 2.30pm – 6.30pm

To secure your appointment, please call Stephen Osborne on 01798 817579. wwww.stephenosbornestamps.com | www.addissonbrydenandco.co.uk