First Penny Black Stamp Could Fetch Up To £6m At Auction

https://www.theguardian.com/artandd...ion-sothebys

Jim

9th Penny Black

Actually, if the sheet from which this example came was printed from the top down, it was among the 12 first stamps. If it was printed from the bottom up, it does not make the top 228.

Good call, NSK. I agree that the sheet was printed "essentially" at the same time and where the individual stamps are on the sheet is not so important.

I smell "Fractional Ownership" in the air.

The point is the history and provenance of the stamp, not the sheet position, chaps.

Color me simple, but each plate was only used to print 1 sheet of stamps? If not, how does anyone know that this in fact is **THE** first penny black? Yes there's collateral accompanying the stamp, but that still doesn't prove that it was the first one (and wouldn't there actually be potentially multiple "first ones" given that an entire sheet was printed)?

Seems more puffery than substance. What am I missing?

It's not on an FDC, so it's just another Penny Black, regardless of when it was actually printed. Unless one had the actual full first sheet signed by the printer and the postmaster at the time, why would anyone really care?

Plainly a lot of people do.

I owned the first first US stamp once. Really, I did.

Documentation. Perkins, Bacon & Petch archives.?

See the other thread on this topic. It contains a link to Sotheby's website: https://www.sothebys.com/en/press/s...-penny-black

The Wallace Document has the following annotation by Mr. Wallace.




The "as above" may refer to the Penny Black being from a "1st Proof of" and "presented to Mr Wallace by Mr The Right Honble The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Francis Thornhill Baring — April 10th 1840."

Since plate 1 was not registered until 15 April 1840, the date of 10 April would be consistent with a proof printing. That is unlikely to have been a print run.
From the articles, it appears the provenance and maybe the history have been researched and confirmed.

It might very well have been established this stamp presented on 10 April 1840 came from a first printing of the stamp from that original plate.
If so, it would indeed be one of the first adhesive postage labels ever printed that was issued as such.

I agree it, at best, will have been one of the first. As I remarked in that other thread, if the direction of printing was one way, it does not even make the top 228.

I read "as above" as referring to the presentation by Baring, rather than the "proof" element. I wondef what the certs say?

Yes, but nearly all of them are simply collectors who cannot actually come close to affording the item. It remains to be seen how many collectors might be willing to shell out $5-$7 million for it.

"Actually, if the sheet from which this example came was printed from the top down, it was among the 12 first stamps. If it was printed from the bottom up, it does not make the top 228."

How were these printed? By a flat plate (in which case there is no direction, right) or by a curved/rotary plate (in which case there would ve a direction)