The 5 cent stamp paid for a letter weighing less than 1 oz and travelling less than 300 miles, the 10 cent stamp for deliveries to locations greater than 300 miles, or, twice the weight deliverable for the 5 cent stamp. Each stamp was hand engraved in what is believed to be steel, and laid out in sheets of 200 stamps. The 5 cent stamp is often found today with very poor impressions because the type of ink used contained small pieces of quartz, and wore down the steel plates to which the stamp was printed. On the other hand, most 10 cent stamps are of strong impressions. A fresh and brilliantly printed 5 cent stamp is prized by collectors.

The stamps were an immediate success; about 3,700,000 of the 5¢ and about 865,000 of the 10¢ were sold.

The post office had become so efficient by 1851 that Congress was able to reduce the common rate to three cents (which remained unchanged for over a century), necessitating a new issue of stamps. Values included a 1¢ profile of Franklin in blue, a 3¢ profile of Washington in red brown, a 5¢ portrait of Thomas Jefferson, and portraits of Washington for 10¢ green and 12¢ black values. The 1c stamp achieved notoriety, at least among philatelists, because production problems led to substantial plate modifications, and there are no less than seven major varieties, ranging in price from $100 to $200,000, and sharp-eyed collectors periodically find the rare types going unrecognized.

Red Cancel

AK

In 1837, Rowland Hill proposed to reform the British postal system by wrapping the letter in an extra piece of paper (envelopes) and attach an adhesive stamp to indicate the prepayment of postage.

The picture in the stamp is that of Queen Victoria. It is based on a sketch done by Henry Cole who based his work on that of William Wyon. Wyon originally sketched a head for a medal that commemorated Queen Victoria's visit to London in 1837, the year she ascended the throne (she was 15 at the time). The stamps were printed by Perkins Bacon.

The Penny Black Stamp was only used for one year because the red cancellation mark was hard to see on the black background. As a result of this, the Treasury reprinted the stamp as a red stamp so that the black cancellation marks that are later used are easier to see and harder to remove.

The Penny Black Stamp was not perforated. In fact, perforation was not introduced until 1854. The stamps were cut apart with scissors. Because of wear and tear, eleven different plates were used during the life cycle of the Penny Black.

While not considered "rare," copies of the Penny Black have a catalog value of about $450.00 and copies are available on the open market ranging from about $20 for one in poor condition to about $200 for nice copies. Cancellations in red ink are more valuable than those in black ink.

Black Cancel

LG

$45.00

Rotary International is an organization of service clubs known as Rotary Clubs located all over the world. It is a secular organization open to all persons regardless of race, color, creed or political preference. There are more than 32,000 clubs and over 1.2 million members world-wide. The members of Rotary Clubs are known as Rotarians. The stated purpose of the organization is to bring together business and professional leaders to provide humanitarian service, encourage high ethical standards in all vocations, and help build goodwill and peace in the world. Members usually meet weekly for breakfast, lunch or dinner, which is a social event as well as an opportunity to organize work on their service goals.

Rotary's best-known motto is "Service above Self", and its secondary motto is "They profit most who serve best".

7.00

The normal 4c commemorative honoring Dag Hammarskjold, late Secretary General of the United Nations, was first issued in New York on October 23, 1962. The stamp was printed on the Glori Press in a yellow, black and brown design on white paper, and 121,440,00 normal stamps were printed. In November of the same year some invert errors of this stamp were discovered. The invert occurred when some sheets of stamps were fed into the pres backwards. As a result, the yellow plate number on each misprinted sheet was inverted, and a white area was left around the illustration of the United Nations building. The white area left as background for the 4c denomination was also inverted.

There were at first only 400 of these inverts printed, but because the Post Office Department did not wish to produce error rarities, they immediately printed 40,270,000 Dag Hammarskjold stamps identical to the invert errors. As a result, the invert errors which at first had a potential collective value of hundreds of thousands of dollars are now worth 50c each. And it is virtually impossible to tell a reprint from an original unless it has a clear early date, but an invert error on a first day cover, proving that stamp was from the original printing and not from the reprint, was sold in 2005 for US $3,500.

A suit was filed against the U.S. Postal system and the court found that reprinting the error was illegal. That does not help on this stamp, but it will prohibit USPS from doing this again in the future.

These stamps are mint, never hinged. A single is $.10 and the plate block of 4 is $1.00. I've pictured both.