Revenue stamps

Sixpence was one of the rates of the first Stamps Act, in force from 28 June 1694, and the Act required a separate stamp for each rate so that one could not be altered into another. On parchment an embossing faded as the skin moved, and a stamp on glued paper could be peeled off and used again, so from 1701 a strip of tin was passed through two slits in the paper and the document, its ends covered at the back by a printed label with the royal cypher, and the stamp was embossed last, locking it all together. The labels were printed from engraved copper plates with every position numbered, and a worn plate was recut and marked: George II's plate, in use from 1731 to 1764, has one short line at top right, beside the number, after its first recut (seen 1738–1746) and two after its second (1740–1759), as on R3. Blue paper was the usual colour; red, as on R3, was among the others used. The letters S, Z and CC name the die – Walter Morley's 1911 catalogue lists sixpenny dies running on into doubled letters such as CC.

Sources: legislation.gov.uk: Stamps Act 1694 (as enacted), Wikipedia: Revenue stamps of the United Kingdom, GBPS: Embossed Duty Stamps – Cypher Labels, Stampboards: UK Royal Cypher Labels, 1701–1922, Photomacrography.net: Embossed escutcheons on revenue stamps, Walter Morley: The Embossed Revenue Stamps of Great Britain and Ireland (1911)

A composite die: the design is framed by I SHILLING at the foot and VI PENCE on the other three sides, and Walter Morley's 1911 catalogue lists exactly this combination – a shilling and three sixpences – among the two-and-sixpenny dies, lettered from A onwards; the collector's notes read 1s 6d. The backs carry labels from George III's first cypher plate, numbered 1 to 320 with a 3 under the crown; neither shows a recut mark, which places both in the plate's original state, used from April 1762 to May 1773. The same duty on the same blue paper as R5 crossed the Atlantic under the Stamp Act of 1765: the Smithsonian's National Postal Museum holds a 2s 6d stamp of that Act on blue paper, stapled to vellum, and the tax met such resistance in the American colonies that it was repealed the following year.

Sources: Walter Morley: The Embossed Revenue Stamps of Great Britain and Ireland (1911), Stampboards: UK Royal Cypher Labels, 1701–1922, Smithsonian National Postal Museum: Stamp from the Stamp Act of 1765, Wikipedia: Stamp Act 1765

Another composite die, with its values running round a crown over a Tudor rose: VI PENCE twice across the top, and I SHILLING and more sixpences on the sides and at the foot. The embossing is too worn to add them up with confidence, so the value is left open here. The cypher label is the clearest dating evidence among these duty stamps: position 249 on George III's first plate, with four short lines at top left – the mark of the plate's fourth and last recut, which followed the third, normally used up to 1790, and was itself replaced by the second plate in February 1797. The edge of the next label on the plate is still attached above it.

Sources: Stampboards: UK Royal Cypher Labels, 1701–1922, GBPS: Embossed Duty Stamps – Cypher Labels

The die reads COMPT. DUTY at the top and FIFTEEN SHILLINGS at the foot, and Walter Morley's 1911 catalogue lists a Compt. Duty fifteen shillings of 1801, die A, followed by dies B and C – which fits the collector's die A of 1801; what Compt. abbreviates, the catalogue does not say. The label is from George III's second cypher plate, introduced in February 1797 and numbered 321 to 640, on which the number is split either side of the crown, so 58 and 9 read as position 589. With no recut marks it is in the plate's original state, used until November 1809.

Sources: Walter Morley: The Embossed Revenue Stamps of Great Britain and Ireland (1911), Stampboards: UK Royal Cypher Labels, 1701–1922

On the back is George IV's cypher, G IV R with the 4 under the crown, at position 50. The Great Britain Philatelic Society's display of cypher labels shows that this plate was not retired when the king died in 1830 but recut and used again under William IV. The value on the front is not legible in the scan; the collector's note gives £1, die A.

Sources: GBPS: Embossed Duty Stamps – Cypher Labels

Victoria's cypher labels began with a new plate registered in 1839 and numbered 1 to 320. Its first recut, marked by a line through the number, is first seen in October 1845; this label has no such line, so it was printed from the plate in its original state. The number is split either side of the crown, 24 and 4 – position 244, if it is read like George III's second plate, though no source seen says so for Victoria's. A year after the plate was registered came the Penny Black, and from 1847 embossed postage stamps were made at Somerset House, where the Stamp Office had been since 1789.

Sources: Stampboards: UK Royal Cypher Labels, 1701–1922, Wikipedia: Penny Black, Wikipedia: British embossed postage stamps, Wikipedia: Somerset House