Who Else Has Just One Penny Black Just To Have One?

Great to know I was not the only one!! lol
Gavin

What an awesome idea, Londonbus. How does one find out if one's initials were even printed?

The stamps were printed in sheets of 240 - 20 rows (from A to T) x 12 columns (from A to L)
The left letter show the horizontal row while the right letter show the vertical column so you can find any combination of A to T (left) x A to L (right)

Hope this helps

Marius, Thank you so very much for the explanation.

Now I know what to get my Great Britain collecting son when I win the lottery.

I won my GB1 from HE Harris at the 1992 Columbian Show in Chicago.
That's something like winning the lottery.

I have one with the red maltese - love it!

Is this like having a 'Bluenose' when collecting Canada?

What if you want a second latter that is not A to L ? Do any other stamps have letters like the Penny Blacks?

Guilty - guilty (twice...I have 2)

Me too. I have a single with red MX and one on cover, nothing exceptional but fairly good pieces. For the same reason as everybody else who posted in the topic. I wanted it.

Putting letters in the corner was a habit the Royal Mail kept for a number of issues of the nineteenth century, first of all the penny red who replaced he black and was in service for nearly 40 years.

Other initials are possible but uncommon. For example, if you see a Penny Black with the letters VR in the upper corners do bid for it if it is less than $5000.

VR stands for "Victoria Regina" (Vicky queen in Latin) and the stamp was prepared for official use but never issued. A few copies were either cancelled for cancellation trials, or used postally by oversight, my old (1992)
catalogue quote it £6,000 mint and £15,000 on cover