The Penny Black was the world's first adhesive postage stamp used in a public postal system. It was first issued in the United Kingdom on 1 May 1840 but was not valid for use until 6 May. The stamp features a profile of Queen Victoria.
The Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) is a government agency within the United States Department of the Treasury that designs and produces a variety of security products for the United States government, most notable of which is Federal Reserve Notes for the Federal Reserve, the nation's central bank. In addition to paper currency, the BEP produces Treasury securities; military commissions and award certificates; invitations and admission cards; and many different types of identification cards, forms, and other special security documents for a variety of government agencies. The BEP does not produce coins; all coinage is produced by the United States Mint. With production facilities in Washington, D.C., and Fort Worth, Texas, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing is the largest producer of government security documents in the United States.
The Penny Red was a British postage stamp, issued in 1841. It succeeded the Penny Black and continued as the main type of postage stamp in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until 1879, with only minor changes to the design during that time. The colour was changed from black to red because of difficulty in seeing a cancellation mark on the Penny Black; a black cancellation mark was readily visible on a Penny Red.
Jacob Perkins was an American inventor, mechanical engineer and physicist. Born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, Perkins was apprenticed to a goldsmith. He soon made himself known with a variety of useful mechanical inventions and eventually had twenty-one American and nineteen English patents. He is known as the father of the refrigerator. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1813 and a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1819.
The Mexican postal system has its roots in the Aztec system of messengers which the Spanish adopted after the Conquest. A postal service was established in 1580, mainly to communicate between the viceroyalty of New Spain with the motherland Spain. During the 18th century, Spain established a formal postal system with regular routes. In 1856, Mexico issued its first adhesive postage stamps, with "district overprints", a unique feature among postal systems worldwide, employed to protect from theft of postage stamps.
Steel engraving is a technique for printing illustrations based on steel instead of copper. It has been rarely used in artistic printmaking, although it was much used for reproductions in the 19th century. Steel engraving was introduced in 1792 by Jacob Perkins (1766–1849), an American inventor, for banknote printing. When Perkins moved to London in 1818, the technique was adapted in 1820 by Charles Warren and especially by Charles Heath (1785–1848) for Thomas Campbell's Pleasures of Hope, which contained the first published plates engraved on steel. The new technique only partially replaced the other commercial techniques of that time such as wood engraving, copper engraving and later lithography.
ABCorp is an American corporation providing contract manufacturing and related services to the authentication, payment and secure access business sectors. Its history dates back to 1795 as a secure engraver and printer, and assisting the newly formed First Bank of the United States to design and produce more counterfeit resistant currency. The company has facilities in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The American Bank Note Company is a wholly owned subsidiary of ABCorp.
Charles Nissen was a British philatelist, and stamp dealer who discovered the famous stock exchange forgery and wrote, with Bertram McGowan, the definitive book on the plating of the Penny Black.
Charles Theodosius Heath was a British engraver, currency and stamp printer, book publisher and illustrator.
Antigua was discovered by Christopher Columbus, in 1493, and was named after the church of Santa Maria la Antigua in Seville. It was first settled in 1632. By the Treaty of Breda in 1667 it became a British Possession.
William Humphrys was an engraver of pictures, book illustrations and postage stamps.
St. Lucia a former British dependency in the Windward Islands began using stamps in 1860. It achieved Associated Statehood on 1 March 1967. In 1979, it gained independence.
William Henry Mote (1803–1871) was a British stipple and line engraver, primarily known for his portraits. He produced etchings for reference books, as well as original etchings. Mote became a member of the Royal Academy in his twenties and his portraits hang in the National Portrait Gallery, London.
Harold Treherne of Brighton, England, was a stamp forger notable for his forgeries of the stamps of India and Australia who was known as The Brighton forger and his works as Brighton forgeries.
Henri-Lucien Cheffer was a French painter, engraver and illustrator. Cheffer was chiefly known for his postage stamp designs, the first of which he designed in 1911. He also designed bank notes for French Algeria, Tunisia, the Netherlands and the Dutch East Indies.
The St. Louis Bears are a set of Provisional stamps issued by the St. Louis Post office in 1845-46 to facilitate prepayment of postal fees at a time when the United States Post Office had not yet issued postage stamps for national use. St. Louis, whose postmaster, John M. Wimer, instigated the production, was one of eleven cities to produce such stamps. Bears were offered in three denominations: 5¢, 10¢ and 20¢; the earliest known postmark date on a stamp of the issue is November 13, 1845.
In early 18th century Colonial America, engravers began experimenting with copper plates as an alternative medium to wood. Applied to the production of paper currency, copper-plate engraving allowed for greater detail and production during printing. It was the transition to steel engraving that enabled banknote design and printing to rapidly advance in the United States during the 19th century.
US Treasury Department Specimen books, also known as BEP presentation albums, were published by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) from the mid-1860s through the 1910s. Prepared upon request of the United States Secretary of the Treasury, albums were generally presented to Cabinet members, select Members of Congress, diplomats and visiting dignitaries. Some extant albums still in their original binding bear the name of the recipient impressed in gold lettering on the cover. While no two presentation albums have exactly the same contents, each book usually contained portraits, vignettes, and/or images of buildings. Specimen books which contain whole proof images of currency are extremely rare.
Siderography is a mechanical process developed by Jacob Perkins in the early 1800s enabling the unlimited reproduction of engraved steel plates. The process enables the transfer of an impression from a steel plate to a steel cylinder in a rolling press. An individual who engraves steel plates was known as a siderographist in the mid 1800s, and a siderographer by the early 1900s.
Robert Clayton was an Irish wood engraver who engraved the first postage stamp of New South Wales.
