Penny Black printing plates

The printing plates for the Penny Black, two pence blue and the VR official were all constructed by Perkins Bacon, the printers of the first postage stamps issued in Great Britain.

The construction of these plates was long and complicated, which was intentional so as to make the forgery of the finished article almost impossible.

This was produced with a rose engine which laid down a circular pattern of symmetrical design onto a piece of soft steel.

A sheet of soft steel was cut, sufficient in size to take 240 impressions of the stamps arranged in twenty horizontal rows of twelve.

Finally the marginal inscriptions were added to the four sides of the sheet using a separate roller and the plate hardened ready for use in production.