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| Congressional Curios |
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| Poster Stamp |
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In order to give his paper, Heath arranged for Perkins, Bacon and Co to produce a poster stamp for the Congress and we illustrate the die proof of what became the Congress stamp. The design is very unusual as Queen Victoria is not wearing a diadem. The head used is very similar to that on a drawing (but reversed) submitted to Perkins, Bacon & Co by Henry Courbold in 1837. It was engraved by William Humphreys who used as his model the third and fourth drawings submitted by Courbold. Another sketch at the same time was used in the production of the Penny Black. What is also unusual with respect to the portrait is that it was only used on one stamp issue, the 1862 Ceylon Foreign Bill stamps.
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The printing plate for these labels was defaced in
front of Congress delegates. |
Again we find something of interest if we study the Ceylon revenue stamp. It was printed in a multi-value sheet of
stamps, the values going from l d to £l. The reasoning for this was to reduce the printing costs for Ceylon as only one plate is needed to be produce. In effect Ceylon were trading off the distribution of the values (eg. many more low values than the single £1) and thus an inherent non-usage of certain values, against the cost of producing a significant number of printing plates. It must have not been practical as this is the only multi-value sheet of stamps known to us. The stamps are difficult to find, but we can illustrate the 1 s and 1 s6d valued stamps in a vertical pair, in black, cut from the Plate Proof sheet. Also we show a pair of the issued stamps, mint, for the 2s8d and 2s values se-tenant; note that the higher value is on the left side of the pair.
Back to the souvenir stamps. Perkins, Bacon & Co produced a sheetlet containing 12 labels and these were printed prior to the Congress in four colours - green, carmine, red-brown and ultramarine, the colours of the then current half penny, one penny, three halfpenny and two and a half penny postage stamps. Each delegate to Congress was given a set of four of these labels at the opening meeting of the Congress - 500 sheets of each colour were printed prior to Congress. In addition Perkins, Bacon & Co printed one sheet in gold that was presented to HRH The Prince of Wales, and one in silver presented to The Right Hon The Earl of Crawford, KT.
However Heath had to demonstrate the printing of the stamps as part of his paper. It is here that we have to use some suppositions in that we have not, so far, found any account of exactly what Heath printed at the Congress. Within our collections we have imperforate sheetlets printed on ungummed thin card in the colours of green, carmine and ultramarine, as issued. We have on ungummed paper imperforate sheetlets in ultramarine (as issued) and in purple (unissued and illustrated here). Finally we have one sheetlet gummed and perforated that has been printed in black (unissued colour). The number of these sheetlets produced is not known but they are rare in any colour other than as issued to delegates. The History of the Philatelic Congress of Great Britain compiled by F. A. Bellamy and J. J. Darlow (1914) states: 'Demonstrations were also made with a printing press... the sheets, as printed, being given away at the close of the Congress meeting, amidst a somewhat boisterous scramble'. |
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