What does the first stamp look like?

Father of postal service-Roland. Sir Hill's "penny postal law" triggered an important revolution in the world postal industry, and also gave birth to the world stamp queen "black penny". 1839 On August 7th, the British Parliament passed the 1p Postage Act and the prepaid postage system. 18, 15 From September 6th to1October 6th, opinions and design drawings on postage prepaid vouchers were publicly solicited. It is because of the confirmation of this draft that the world's first stamp was produced. Its face value is easy for scholars to measure, and it is printed in black ink, so it is called black penny stamp.

The black penny stamp is the first official stamp in the world. It takes Queen Victoria's head as the pattern, adopts the most advanced engraving printing technology widely used in Europe and America at that time, and uses crown watermark paper which is difficult to forge. There is the word "postage" in the middle of the top of the pattern, and the left and right corners cross, and there is a face value of "penny" (1p) in the middle of the bottom. Horizontal 12, vertical 20, one 240, face value just 1. In order to prevent forgery, except that each stamp has a crown watermark, the lower left corner and the lower right corner of the stamp are printed in sequence. If the first one is a, a; The second is a and b; The third is A, C … all the way to A, L, *** 12. The letters in the lower left corner of the vertical bar are A, B, C ... until T, just like the letters in the lower right corner. The position of each stamp in the whole stamp can be accurately judged by the two letters in the lower corner of each stamp. If the letter in the lower left corner of a stamp is C and the letter in the lower right corner is D, then this stamp is the fourth in the third row.

1, the birth of the world's first stamp

As mentioned earlier, rowland hill suggested setting a "label" to indicate "postage paid". His suggestion led to the final birth of stamps.

The world's first stamp was born in England on May 1840. This stamp is designed as a profile of Queen Victoria 18 when she ascended the throne. Carved and printed by Friedrich Heath, face value 1p, printed in black. Henry Coppler specially selected the portrait on the medal made by the Royal Mint W. Whine to commemorate the Queen's first visit to London in 1838. Charlie heath and frederick heath are responsible for carving impressions. There is the word "postage" in the middle of the top of the stamp pattern, and the left and right corners cross. In the middle of the lower end is the face value of "a penny", and the left and right corners are capitalized English letters.

Britain originally stipulated that the postage system of 1p would be implemented from 10, 1840+ 10. But by June 5438+ 10, envelopes, wrapping paper and stamps were not ready. So I temporarily changed the stamp on the envelope as proof of "postage paid" until May 6th 1840.

1840 * * There are two denominations of stamps issued in Britain-1p stamps, which are black, and philatelists call them black penny stamps; 2 pence stamp, blue. Stamps are printed on white paper. In order to prevent forgery, there is a small crown watermark in the paper. At that time, only Britain issued stamps, which can be said to be unique.

In order to promote the use of stamps, a large stamp blank of 1p was left, which read "each stamp 1p, each row 12 stamps, price 1 shilling"; Please stick the stamp on the upper right corner of the envelope. When the back is wet, be careful not to remove the words such as glue. The price of each block is 1 pound. At that time, there were no punching machines, and there were no holes around each stamp. When the post office sells individual stamps, it is necessary to cut each stamp with scissors.

Rowland hill once thought that most senders like to buy envelopes with stamps printed by the post office (similar to the current "aerogramme") and wrapping paper. In fact, everyone likes to buy stamps, and many people buy the whole book if they feel novel. As a result, stamps are in short supply, and printers are working day and night to print to meet the demand. According to statistics, from May 6th 1840 to May 6th 184 1, 1, * * sold 72 million black penny stamps.

Stamps issued in Britain are very popular because of their low face value and convenient use. In the first year, 1 1 was reprinted and 68 million stamps were sold. Black penny stamps that have been in circulation for more than 140 years are the earliest, but the current price is not very high. Because there was no habit of using envelopes in Britain at that time, it was usual to fold the written letter, write the name and address of the recipient, affix a stamp, seal the back with wax, and then send it. Some letters have been preserved for business or other reasons, and so have the stamps attached to them.

The name of the country was not indicated on the black penny stamp, because no country had issued stamps except Britain at that time. Today, stamps issued in Britain still don't print the country name, but take the crown and the head of the king as the symbol of the country name.

Because of rowland hill's great contribution to postal service, he was awarded the title of knight in 1860 and honorary citizen of London in 1879. In the same year, rowland hill died in London. Later, people called him "the father of stamps".

The appearance of stamps has greatly simplified the cumbersome charging procedures, and countries have followed suit.

2. China first issued stamps.

Stamps are the product of modern postal service, and the history of postal service is much longer than stamps. As early as more than two thousand years ago, there was a postal organization in the Zhou Dynasty in China, which was called a post station or post station at that time. In ancient times, the post office was used by government officials. They don't accept letters from ordinary people, but only deliver government documents and military newspapers. They don't charge postage and don't need to issue stamps. It is difficult for ordinary people to send letters only by acquaintances.

During the Yongle period of the Ming Dynasty (1403 ~ 1424), people's information bureaus began to appear. The People's Information Bureau is a private business organization. If the amount of funds is large, branches, joint offices or agency stores will be set up in various places to form a communication network in a certain area; Small capital will establish contact with other people's information bureaus and receive letters from each other. In addition to delivering letters, the People's Information Bureau also handles parcel and remittance services. There is no uniform charging standard and the charging methods are not exactly the same (some are received in advance, and some are paid by the recipient when receiving the letter).

In the Qing dynasty, due to the poor post system and slow delivery of official documents, all provinces set up their own newspapers and periodicals bureaus. The work of the newspaper bureau is: send newspapers sent to foreign envoys to Shanghai and send them to foreign ships there; Imported newspapers are also sent by Shanghai.

In the fourth year of Guangxu reign of Qing Dynasty (1878), the Qing government took Tianjin as the center, and set up postal services in Beijing, Tianjin, Yantai, Niuzhuang (Yingkou), Shanghai and other places on a trial basis to receive and send public and private letters. This is also the beginning of China modern customs postal trial. In that year, the Shanghai Customs Registration Office printed a set of stamps, including three stamps. The face value of stamps (calculated by silver) is: one cent silver (yellow-green), three cents silver (vermilion) and five cents silver (orange). The main picture of the stamp is a dragon. The stamp bears the English word "CHINA" (China) and the word "Daqing" in the upper two corners. This is the first stamp issued in China. Because the stamp form of this set of stamps is slightly larger than the second issue of Panlong stamps, stamp collectors generally refer to the first issue of stamps in China as "dragon stamps".

The first day of the issue of Dalong Stamp has been inconclusive for a long time. After years of research and textual research by philatelists at home and abroad, and confirmed by later excavated customs archives, it is a relatively unified understanding that the first day of issue of "Dalong Stamp" is July 24th, 1878.

What needs to be pointed out in particular is that after the Second Opium War, the Qing government signed an unequal treaty with western imperialist countries, losing some national sovereignty. Although the postal service of the Qing government was opened, it was still controlled by foreigners. Young friends, we can never forget this history of losing power and humiliating our country.

Some young friends will definitely ask: How did the word "stamp" come from? What did people call it before the word "stamp" appeared? According to textual research, the word "Stamp" is translated from the English word "stamp", which means "postage certificate".

In China's official documents, stamps were originally called "pattern paper". 1896, Emperor Guangxu approved the official opening of the national postal service, and the published postal regulations stipulated that "the post office must make a letter ticket before pasting the letter surface". Later, in the official documents and announcements of the post office, it was also called "letter ticket". Because the word "letter" cannot include all postal services, 1899 officially uses the name "stamp".

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