Penny Red- letters all corners plate number?

There are three questions here for attention.
1 the reversed order of upper corner lettters was simply against counterfeit but also to prevent cut and shut type repairs where 2 clean halfstamps were joined for reuse. One penny though much cheaper than previous postage charges was still a significant amount in 1860.

2 yes plates numbers over 200 are much scarcer and thus more expensive 225 is scarce and fetches £100+ in good condition.
Do you have a catalogue listing? If you don’t I could email the relevant pages from Gibbons catalogue.

3 re country names on stamps. It was decided at an early UPU convention that every country should have its name on stamps
 for international use. Britain as the first country in the world to use stamps was excepted but had to include the monarch’s portrait , simply because it was the first.  The rule was accepted and has never been changed . Don’t know what happens if we become a republic🤪

cutting in half, ah hadn't thought of that - I have  a CV from 2017, should be close enough for a general idea, I knew 225 was hard to come by (but thanks for offering vikingeck !)

feebletodix  I think all the major /commercial networks are political operatives, some more blatant than others....I'm more of an NPR type

Vikingeck,

I see your point about destroying mutilated penny reds but wouldn't it make more sense to save all the "mutilated" older, classic stamps (anything pre-1900, say) and dump them in the "youth boxes" at most stamp shows?  Last time I was at a local show three youngsters, all of eight or nine years old, got so excited over an "old antique stamp" pulled from a huge box of donated cheap stamps, many of which had pulled perf, creases, and would to many collectors today qualify only as "space fillers" or seconds.  The kids were arguing over who saw it first and trying to decide who would get to choose it.  Guess what, it had a heavy smeared cancel and such poor centering that many collectors would "toss it". I concur, but toss it into the youth table at the next stamp show (they nearly always have a kid's corner or accept donations, scouts too, etc.)

The memorable thing for me, it was an Australian 1d King George V red (watermark? plate variety? small mining town cancel? not important when you're pre-teen collecting!). I had the exact same response when I found a green version KGV in a $1 Woolworth bag of stamps.  That stamp was my pride and joy as I didn't even know about stamp catalogues, just that it HAD to be old and valuable; I think I still have it in my OZ album, even though it's rather off-center with a heavy parcel-type cancel nearly ruining it for most collectors. 

One of the younger kids looked bored so I asked her "are the any purple stamps in there?  I LOVE purple stamps"  her eyes suddenly sparkled and she immediately pulled ten or twelve "purple" stamps out to show me, as I told her (a bit dishonestly) "wow, cool, I don't have that one!" or "hey wonder where that Dinosaur stamp is from?"  That girl was, even if for a short time, excited about her new exciting hobby.   

So of course it's a matter of choice, but please consider saving even those "seconds and fillers" that might have been printed in the hundreds of millions, or even billions.  Consider the penny reds have already hung around for seventeen decades; why kill one now for being a bit mutilated?  

I keep a piggy-bank type box in my stamp area on a shelf to toss just such seconds and fillers, the few hundred otherwise nearly sound, stamps might make a small difference for someone, someday, somewhere.  

Jay

my standards relax considerably for a penny black, 225 or shipwreck 
jayinok  you may have a point- I remember some of the really poor coins and stamps I 'collected" when I first started!  greading and condition meant little to nothing- I think our local stamp club may have a 'kids box"

Hi Stan, that is 115 . I thought the last figure was possibly a 9 , but flipping the image the number on the other side definitely has a flat top _

A nice clean copy , decent centre and not too heavy a postmark cancel
Alex

Does anyon ehave what they believe to be a realistic side-by -side comparison of Rose-red and Leke-red?  SG color aid has one , but not the other....

and were ALL plates printed in both colors?

thanks!

Were all plates printed in both  rose-lake  AND rose-red?

is rose-lake the darker (more brown?)of the two?  SG color aid only has rose-red....

I'm about to start laying out my first pages (scribus) and I'm trying to decide whether to seek examples of both colors per plate (and after looking through over 500 1864 all 4 corner peny reds.... this isn't real appealling at the moment LOL)

What are  others thoughts? I notice color variety are often not always the focus on stamps offerecd  for sale from various sources/sites, but plate #'s are?

here's 5 examples of Plate 80, some better shape than others (and there's a sizeable number from the 500+ I've placed in the "cull pile", and I found as I got closer to the end, I was less "charitable" unless it was a plate number I did not have/aka filler)


and to the diligent eye, that's a cat hair on center stamp (courtesy of my Manx that is now in full shedding mode....)

Thanks

Stan

The *131* is an Edinburgh, Scotland Experimental duplex type .

It  really is a rather neat cancel from a time when, obsessed with cleaning and re-use of stamps, the Post Office issued  Duplex cancels that were primarily "KILLERS"  like the heavy Engish "75" you show in that group.

Hi Stan  , as indicated in replies to your question re vermillion colour , I cannot get too upset by colour in USED Victorian stamps.

SG only lists two shades for the penny with letter in all 4 corners, but they are now 150 years old. production of millions over 21 years sometimes more ink, sometimes thinner ink, sometimes heavier inking , sometimes fainter inking.  Used examples will have been soaked, some will be sun faded, some will have accumulated dirt and grime and some like my copy of plate 170 below will have been darkened by hydrogen suphide from coal gas lights. 

 

SG priced both shades the same in any case. Of all my examples above, possibly only the mint 171 is truly representative of the original colour ( rose red?) but who knows?

Of course , if you want to extend the range beyond 240 letter combos on 150 or so different plate numbers , you could always start collecting by postmark.


There's about 1000+  English, 200+ Scottish,  similar Irish,  50 or more London. 

Here's my first attempt at making my own page... Using Scribus, once I got the hang of workflow it started going pretty well. One thing I found out after almost a complete page , is the scaling in the software doesn't quite match  what my printer interprets, so i had to play with  the size of boxes for the the mounts till i got it compensated for.

I may change the border to something more "elegant"  I got tired positioning and sizing - this was the last thing I did...and then again, I may omit altogether

I know this is perhaps more information than a great many might want, but I like self-explanatory...or at leastts that's the idea

I just realized I omitted Scott and SG #'s.... well hell.... then I'd have to mention colors.... maybe I'll put pertinent info on an opposing page....

This is a scan on standard white paper. i will be printing on manilla card stock

I understand, completely. I spent the day plugging coordinated down to 4 decimal places.

There was a slight glitch with Scribus shortly after I posted my mock up, so I have spent the last hour searching out solutions and relearning how to write code.... i almost have it... it doesn't quite open fully on the screen so i have to drag in over

I can live with that- at first, everything opened and then promptly disappeared.

perhaps, but i am a stickler for detail...

BTW, the revision is even more "TMI"

Nice Stan !!


René