United Kingdom - Odd Version Of Queen Victoria 4-P From 1865

Hi All, hope you can help me assessing the background and value of an old UK stamp. It is a vermillion coloured 4 pence depicting Queen Victoria. I assume from the larger fonts it is from 1865. The perforation was done quite wide though, I have not seen this before yet. Anyone?

1865, 4d, plate 7, large white corner letters. I count 13 perforation tips from right to the frame at left, a 14th one just past the frame coincides with gauge 14.
The left wing margin (perforated gutter between stamps) for stamp 7 (G in lower right corner), also, is correct.

Looks normal. The perforations at left look clipped and the stamp itself is a space-filler.

The cancellation looks like one of the doubles that were issued to the foreign newspaper office in February 1860.

Bloemzee -between panes of early GB stamps there is a wide space between the printed images on the two panes. Rather than perforated the edge stamps near their design, ending up with a blank perforated gutter between panes, they perforated once between the panes, halfway between the images. This results in 'wing margins' on the left or right sides of stamps at the sides of the stamps. I apologize if this is not what you were asking about.

Hi Bobby,
not come across this before, interesting, can you expand? or offer any further information / links / bibliography for my study please.

Rod, from SG Specialised Vol. 1

Well, I'll be...
It's been a day of surprises. Thanks Bobby. NSK
I'll have to dig out Curt Furnau and Stitt Dibden for a lookee see.
Still intrigued, why a double /triple.

Come to think of it, in all my years, I have yet to see a Provincial Newspaper Branch CDS. (CDS with NPB at bottom of ring)

Hi Rod,

My source is Westley - London Postal Cancellations 1840-1890.

I have a pdf of the book but I can't find it on the web now.

Hi Bobby,
Thanks so much.

I put XYPlorer to the task, and searched my database.
I had Westley in a Zip file.
Just unzipped and found the double / triple on Page 4

Your recall of this Postmark is extraordinary.

Furnau and Stitt Dibden do not list,
I am still left with curiosity, how this hammer was employed.
How it fit in the scheme of things.
Time to read Westly.

So, December 1860, the hammers were sent to the Foreign Newspaper office.
Now they were designed in the first instance to cancel multiples,
(eg letters from the Crimea, which usually bore 3 stamps)

I find it hard to understand Foreign newspapers requiring 3 stamps?
Perhaps bundles ? with high franking.

I have passed numerous stamp with double bars, and just presumed they were double strikes.
I will now watch with renewed interest.

Thank you Rod, but it's easy to do when I'm only focused on three things in the main (London & other GB markings on 1d reds, NSW DLR stamps & NSW numeral cancels).

Lucky blighter!

Thinking about the hammers more, I guess 1860, Commonwealth countries would be eager for News from "home"
Newspapers would have a staple diet.

I have a foggy memory of the numbers I read somewhere, and it was astronomical.
Also, Newsprint for Foreign destinations would have had to be delivered to Major receiving offices (Guess)

This would certainly be the case for Australia prior to 1872 (overland telegraph), where newspapers were the 'window on the world' so to speak.

I agree, the numbers of British newspapers bound for the colonies must have been enormous during the early to mid 19th century.

Love reading Westley, he is such a great Journalist / Philatelist.

He does use "stamps" interchangeable with the physical item, and hammer impressions, I prefer "strikes" for those.

I found it interesting Rowland Hill advocated as early as 1839 to combine the London Post with the Local Post, it took 16 years to be adopted
(Hill's advice taken from the French Paris postal "departments")

There are so many "strike" impressions in Westley, I have never seen before.
Intoxicating stuff.......

Oddity

Westley quotes on Page 4, bottom.
"regarding this series, no number above 74 is known to collectors"

I am having trouble understanding that.
Is that referring to the double /triples?

If so the OP here, if it is a double, shows a possible "85" ?

Yes Rod, he is referring to the doubles/triples. At least that's how I read it.

The device numbers recorded in Parmenter for the doubles with the heavy bars shown in the OP's picture are 77 to 79 and are attributed to the Foreign Office. All are very rare.

Of the doubles with the heavy bars used at the Inland Office, the only possibility is number 46.

The OP's stamp certainly looks like it has an 8 in the numeral though.

If it's an Inland Branch cancel which one is it?

Based on the heavy bars and the shape (along with the date of issue of the stamp itself), I'd say it's either the obliterator part of a London duplex struck twice or one of the Dubus type 9 obliterators, again struck twice.