"THE PENNY BLACK ~ THE WORLD'S MOST FAMOUS STAMPS 1840."
FU Stamp, with a well-centred Black Maltese Cross cancel ~ in Westminster Folder / Album !!
PLEASE see ALL the pictures for details.
A few words from the folder:
The World's Most Famous Stamps.
The Penny Black.
Stamps are one of the everyday things which we take so much for granted that it's impossible to visualise a world without them; but little more than 160 years ago sending & receiving letters was a major operation, and a relatively expensive one.
Letters were charged according to the distance travelled & the number of sheets (envelopes effectively doubled the postage, so they were hardly ever used).
To send a letter from London to Glasgow cost 18 pence - a couple of days' wages for the average man - & it was the recipient who paid, not the sender !
Rowland Hill led the campaign for Uniform Penny Postage, arguing that the main cost of the postal service was the cumbersome method of computing postage. A flat rate of a Penny, paid by the sender, would slash costs dramatically - but to achieve this he had to devise a method of...
CERTIFICATE OF AUTHENTICITY.
This is to certify that this is an original 1840 Penny Black Stamp.
