Numbers, Words, or Both?[1]*
*Subscript numbers refer to notes which can be found at the end of the text; numbers in square brackets refer to the illustrations.
The Use, Disuse and (Re)introduction of Numeral Value Indicators
on UK Revenue and Postage Stamps
Peter Mansfield
For the last 39 years absolutely and for the last 70 years with a very few exceptions[2], postage stamp users and collectors in the United Kingdom have been accustomed to buying definitive stamps whose value has been indicated by a numeral (½d, 1/6, £1; 1p, 42p, £10) and only by a numeral. Before that, and excepting only the PUC ½d and 2½d of 1929 (SG434 and 437) which had numerals only, all KGV stamps had combined numerals with words, e.g. “1 - ONE PENNY - 1”. (The “d” was not used for any pence value; the shillings and pounds were marked, e.g “1s - ONE SHILLING - 1s” or “10/- - TEN SHILLINGS”, “£1 - ONE POUND”.) KEVII stamps had all used numerals only (2d, 10d) or numerals and words (the high values), except for the ½d, 1d, 6d and 1s, which had words only; the immediately preceding QV “Jubilee” issue had been similar, with just the ½d and 1s using words only. Before that, the 1883-84 issues had all used both words and numerals together, e.g. “2d - TWO PENCE - 2d”, “1s - ONE SHILLING - 1s”, “£1 - ONE POUND - £1”. But before that, in the preceding 43 years back to 1840, only four Postage stamps had used numerals at all: the 1882 £5 (SG133/137: words and numerals), the 1875/1881 2½d (SG138-142 and 157: words and numeral), the 1870 “bantam” ½d (SG48-49: numeral only) and the 1867/1882 5s (SG126-127, 130 and 134), which used the unique numeral/word combination “5 SHILLINGS”. Now I found all this somewhat surprising, and I have no sure explanation for it[3]. But as a “Revenues man”, I decided to compare the Postage treatment of the face values on stamps with that obtaining in the world of adhesive Revenues, and I found a different and rather intriguing story.
1840-1911
1912-(2006)
In the Revenue Beginning was the Word, but the Word was with – the Numeral: on “tall” stamps, at least. In 1853, the first Revenue stamps were produced, by two different printers (Perkins, Bacon and De La Rue), using two different printing-methods (line-engraving and surface printing or typography), in two different formats (“tall” and “square”). On the very first line-engraved Revenue stamps issued - the “tall” Life Policy series [1], printed by Perkins, Bacon, and kept unchanged in design from 1853 till 1881 - the numerals appeared twice, in a very large type-face, in the top and bottom thirds of the stamp. The words were much smaller and formed the lower semi-circle of a circular text surrounding the Queen’s head in the centre of the stamp. There was no design variation, and all values were reddish brown.
1
2-3
On De La Rue’s Foreign Bill “tall” stamps [4-5], the surface-printed Revenue series issued in 1854 in a similar though smaller format to Life Policy, the numerals and the words balanced each other. The numerals – more than a match for the words in size – were below the Queen’s head on the pence values and above it on the shilling and pound values; the words vice-versa. This was the only design variation within the series. All values were the same colour, reddish violet to purple. Alas, however, words and numerals alike were more or less invisible – particularly after the application of a heavy manuscript or hand stamp cancellation. So the following year, both expressions of value were picked out in bright carmine, giving us the first bi-coloured stamp. This improvement was found to be so satisfactory that the system of numerals and words together was maintained until 1870. The eternal rule of Treasuries – “make no gratuitous changes which will increase our costs” – remained in force for fifteen years.
4-5
Both of these “tall” series, Life Policy and Foreign Bill, were ‘fiscal’ (for collecting duties or taxes) rather than ‘judicial’ (for collecting Court fees and, sometimes, fines) and only two other entire Fiscal series were produced in this format, together with the highest two values in a third. Perkins, Bacon were responsible for the two complete series, Ireland Registration of Deeds [6] and Ireland Record of Titles [7], both of which were line-engraved and used the same invariant size, format and pattern - for all values - as the Foreign Bill shillings and pounds. The third series, Customs: Entry Duties, was surface-printed by De La Rue, mostly in the “square” format – see below; but for the £5 and £10 [8-9] the same Foreign Bill pattern was employed. A similar pattern and format, however, were employed for the earliest Judicial series as well. This was Admiralty Court [10], surface-printed by De La Rue and issued for the first time in 1855. It can be seen as a blending of Life Policy with Foreign Bill: resembling the latter in size and colour, it followed the former in using quite large numerals twice, above and below the central vignette, while the value in words was only given once.
6-10
On “square” stamps, however (the format later used for most QV and KEVII Postage high values), we find a completely different story. From the very start there were no numerals. (In fact the first “square” issue to admit a numeral was not a Revenue stamp, but the Postage 5s of 1867, mentioned above; no Revenue stamp in this format was ever issued with a numeral.) On the first De La Rue surface-printed stamps of any kind, the 1d Receipt [2: SGF1, F3-F4] and Draft [3: SGF2] of 1853, just as with contemporary Postage issues numerals were not used: the words ONE PENNY followed the description RECEIPT or DRAFT to form an upper semicircle of text surrounding the Queen’s head. The example of the Postage 5s fourteen years later, and even more of the 2/6, 5s and 10s from 1883 on, proves that there was no objective reason why numerals had to be avoided, so it must have been a design choice: but one which was to have a widespread impact in the last third of the nineteenth century.
Now at this point I propose to follow the development of Judicial designs for a decade or so, before returning to their Fiscal siblings. With one exception (Ireland Petty Sessions) no Judicial series used the “square” format. But the development of the Joubert 2 head for Postage enabled new formats to be tried, and the first such was used for Chancery Court [11] in 1856. This employed the same size of paper as Foreign Bill and Admiralty Court, but in landscape form rather than portrait. Use was again made of numerals as well as words, and the numerals were by far the more noticeable of the two. As with the two earlier appropriations, the design and colour were invariant for all values.
11-12[6]
In 1858 yet another variation was tried: Probate Court [13] and Matrimonial Cause Court [14] employed stamps that were equivalent in size to two Draft or Receipt designs side by side - and therefore landscape-rectangular, not square; so numerals and words were both used. Like all the others described so far, these two series used colour-invariant designs for all values - though in 1866[4] they replaced their standard dull lilac with a deep bright blue.
13-14
So far, then, all Judicial stamps had used value-figures as well as words. In 1861, however[5], there appeared an Irish Courts series, Ireland Petty Sessions [15-18], which broke new ground in a variety of ways. These were the first Judicials to use what had become the predominant Fiscal format; the series employed two designs and three (or four: the exact status of the 6d blue is disputed) colours instead of just one; and numerals were not used.
15-18
One remaining Court system, Common Law Courts, was left without stamps until 1865. This series [19-25] kept faith with previous Judicial generations in one respect only: all stamps were the same colour. But the design was different for every value, yet another new stamp format (portrait-rectangular, but not “tall”) was tried out, and once again, numerals were not used[6].
19-25
Where the Judicials are concerned, we have arrived at the end of the Wyon/Joubert era, with only the two last series of this era being “numeral-free”. But with the Fiscals the opposite had virtually always been the case. As we have seen, the standard “square” format had not liked numerals from the very start. In 1855 the two original Fiscal functions merged in the Draft or Receipt issue [27: SGF5-F7], which was replaced in 1860 by the Inland Revenue series [28-30]. This broke new ground in that there were three stamps in the series (1d: SGF9, F12, F15; 3d: SGF10, F13, F16, F24, F26; and 6d: SGF11, F14, F17, F25, F27), and although they were all the same pale lilac they used different designs. The 6d - very similar in style and identical in size to the Matrimonial Cause and Probate Court stamps of two years earlier - followed their example and became one of only three early Fiscals, along with the Customs £5 and £10 described earlier, to use clearly-visible value-figures as well as words: on the other stamps, numerals were not used. But the whole series also used a visual “geometric mnemonic” to indicate value. Thus, the central design on the penny was a unitary circle. On the 3d, however, it was a triangle, and on the 6d a hexagon.
26[6]
27-30
In the same year (1860) the principle of “geometric mnemonics” was adopted and taken further by the short-lived Customs: Entry Duties series [32-39], surface-printed by De La Rue. Here, the 1d and 1s values were unitary circles/ovals, the 4d a “four-sided” square, the 6d a hexagon, the 2s a two-part divided oval, the 5s a pentagon, the 10s a decagon, and the £1 a unitary square. At the same time - another novelty - value-tiers were distinguished by colour: pence were rose, shillings lilac and pounds, green. All of these, along with Perkins Bacon’s line-engraved 1/6 for Customs: Bill of Lading [31], were in the “square” format and therefore without numerals. As already indicated, the “tall” £5 and £10 did make use of numerals; but they used visual mnemonics as well. The £5 had a “Gothic” pentagon [8], the £10 a ten-sided scallop-figure [9].
31
32-39
We have looked at the early years of both the Fiscals (to 1860) and the Judicials (to 1865). Now we arrive at the first watershed in the history of Revenue stamp design. In the mid-1860s the Board of Inland Revenue decided that United Kingdom Revenue stamps should be differentiated from all other stamps (UK and Colonial, Postage and Telegraph) by using a completely new head of the Queen. Engraved by Pound from a sculpture by Theed and characterised by a “limp sausage” bun at the back of the head under which hung two ribbons, this head was to be used exclusively for all new Revenue designs. And the first appropriation to employ this head was Companies Registration in 1866 [40-44]. A fiscal application, this series used the “square” stamp format - though it was the last to do so - and to compensate further for the novelty of the head, all five stamps in the series were printed in the same colour (reddish lilac to reddish violet), but with a different design for each value. There was a partial use of “visual mnemonics” (the rhomboid frame on the 4d, the hexagon on the 6d); but true to the “square” tradition, no numerals were used.
40-44
In the following year, for the first time the stamps of an existing appropriation underwent changes. Not only did the “square”, Wyon-head Inland Revenue 1d give way to its Theed/Pound head successor [45: SGF18], but this replacement stamp was, after fourteen years of Revenue history, postage-stamp sized. The design was slightly altered in 1868 to avoid confusion with an existing Postage stamp, and the result became the reddish lilac to pale dull purple “Revenue Penny Purple” [46-50: SGF19-23], which survived as the basic and most commonly-used receipt stamp, through three more die changes, until 1881. Of course, no numeral was used.
45
46-50
1868 also saw the introduction of the Theed/Pound head for Judicials on two very little-seen Irish Courts series, which both used the stamp size introduced for Common Law Courts, in the same portrait format (Admiralty Court Ireland [51]) and also in a new landscape format (Chancery Fee Fund Ireland [52]). Neither appropriation made much use of its new stamps, despite their attractiveness. The former also became the second UK bi-coloured stamp, and used an early version of a Key Plate: the variant values, in rose, were printed later onto rose tablets on an invariant basic blue design. Both - perhaps not surprisingly for Judicials - used numerals.
51
52
However it was probably the Inland Revenue development that in 1870 occasioned the adoption of a new stamp size and a new design, or rather, set of designs, for Foreign Bill [53-55]. At first sight this seems strange, when one bears in mind the notorious stinginess of Treasuries and their built-in resistance to change: why change such a longstanding, tried-and-true design? Part of the reason will certainly have been the consideration, of the kind keenly appreciated by Treasuries everywhere, that a smaller stamp would mean a lower unit-cost. The new stamps were an interesting and novel size: the height of the traditional Revenue “square” stamps, but the width of a standard postage stamp; therefore, the second-smallest Revenue stamp. (Interestingly, at the end of use of adhesive Revenue stamps in 1985, this was to be the sole remaining stamp size.) But they also constituted the next step in a process that would lead to a clear, if different, approach to the distinguishing of stamp values. Following on from the Customs stamps of ten years earlier, the new smaller Foreign Bill used lilac for the penny tier, violet for the shillings and, just like Customs, green for the pounds. Instead of one design for the whole issue as before, each value-tier had its own design. So value-tiers were more clearly distinguishable than before; but the same can hardly be said for individual values, since in a complete break with precedent no numerals were used.
53-55
A couple of years’ use showed that the excessively fugitive violet ink employed for the shillings – the most common value-tier – caused them to become unusable extremely rapidly through wear and tear, and so in 1872 shillings and pounds exchanged colours [56-57]. The resulting system was to last till 1902, and became the colour-model for the Key Types, which sprang into existence later the same year. The shillings were re-designed in 1881, with a different design for every value [58-64]: but still in green – and still without numerals.
56-64
From 1873, all but one new Revenue appropriations used the Key Type format, inspired by the new Foreign Bill system. As we shall see below, these also all began their existence with no numerals. The one major exception was a Judicial series, Judicature Fees [65-77], which from 1876 replaced all the earlier Courts series. These stamps used the size and format first introduced for Common Law Courts (portrait: pence tier) and Chancery Fee Fund Ireland (landscape: shillings and pound tiers), while their colour-coding followed Foreign Bill: lilac pence, green shillings, violet pound (though at one stage a green pound had been considered: [78]). But in true Judicial tradition, with the exception of the pence tier all the stamps used numerals - large, clearly-visible numerals compared with which the words were almost unreadable - to indicate their value.
65-68
69-77
78
Before we move on to the second great watershed in Revenue stamp history, the introduction of the “appropriated unappropriated die stamps” I refer to as the Key Types, this is a good point to review the “numerals/no numerals” situation in the 1870s. First, let’s go back to the first 1853 issues, and make our now usual distinction between Fiscals and Judicials.
Numerals b No Numerals r
1. Fiscals
v 1853 Life Policy - Withdrawn 1881b
v 1853 Draft 1d }- r
v 1853 Receipt 1d } Replaced by r
o 1855 Draft & Receipt 1d - Succeeded by r
o 1860 Inland Revenue “square” 1d - Succeeded by r
o 1867 Inland Revenue “1d Purple” - Withdrawn 1881 r
v 1854 Foreign Bill “tall” - Replaced by b
o 1870 Foreign Bill “short” -TILL 1902 r
v 1860 Customs: Bills of Lading - Withdrawn 1863 r
v 1860 Customs: Import Duty 1d - £1 - Withdrawn 1863 r
v 1860 Customs: Import Duty £5, £10 - Withdrawn 1863 b
v 1860 Inland Revenue 3d - Withdrawn 1883 r
v 1860 Inland Revenue 6d - Withdrawn 1883 b
v 1861 Ireland Registration of Deeds - TILL 1902 b
v 1865 Ireland Record of Titles - Replaced by Key Types 1892 b
v 1866 Companies Registration - TILL 1902 r
2. Judicials
v 1854 Admiralty Court - Withdrawn 1875 b
v 1856 Chancery Court - Withdrawn 1875 b
v 1858 Matrimonial Cause Court - Withdrawn 1875 b
v 1858 Probate Court - Withdrawn 1875 b
v 1861 Ireland Petty Sessions - TILL 1902 r
v 1865 Common Law Courts - Withdrawn 1875 r
v 1868 Admiralty Court Ireland - Withdrawn 1878 b
v 1868 Chancery Fee Fund Ireland - Withdrawn 1881(?) b
v 1876 Judicature Fees pence value-tier - TILL 1902 r
v 1876 Judicature Fees other value-tiers - TILL 1902 b
3. Postage
v 1867/1882 5s b
v 1870 ½d b
v 1875/1881 2½d b
v 1882 £5 b
v 1840-1883 ALL OTHER STAMPS (minimum 39 designs) r
This table makes two things very clear. The first is the preference of the Judicials for numerals and of the Fiscals (and Postage) for “no numerals”: this may be in part due to the fact that, Ireland Petty Sessions apart, there were no “square” Judicials, but we’ve also seen that there is no overwhelming reason for avoiding numerals on “square” stamps.. The second is the overall tendency away from numerals in the later part of the century. Of those five non-Key Type appropriations/designs which lasted till the start of the reign of KEVII, we find only one complete issue - Ireland Registration of Deeds - and one partial issue - Judicature Fees shillings and pound tiers - using numerals. The remaining major issues (Companies Registration, Foreign Bill and Ireland Petty Sessions) are numeral-free. And the Key Types, which were to become the standard Revenue design, were numeral-free as well.
And at this point I ask, in some puzzlement: if I’m going to use small adhesive labels to indicate sums of money due or paid, in the clearest possible fashion, surely I’m going to use numerals - as well as, if not in place of - words? Postage-stamp users, as we saw at the start, have been familiar with this approach for well over a hundred years. Yet the mid-Victorian stamp-designers, printers, and the civil servants who commissioned their work didn’t seem to think this was necessary.[7] Instead, they opted with increasing ingenuity to distinguish between value-tiers, rather than between individual values. It seemed to be more important, in their eyes, to make it plain that a given Revenue stamp was a pound, or a shilling, or a penny: but not how many pounds, or shillings, or pence any particular stamp represented. And they distinguished the value-tiers very thoroughly indeed.
The basic Foreign Bill system - coding value-tiers by colour - was chosen for the new and modestly revolutionary Key Type series introduced in 1872-73, but was greatly expanded. The “revolutionary” aspect of the Key Type system lay in the use of a set of blank, or “unappropriated”, dies, onto which the name of any one of a large number of appropriations could be overprinted at need. This would result in huge cost-saving, in that it would no longer be necessary to commission expensive new designs for each appropriation that came along. The Key Types were a reflection of the tri-partite sterling system (pounds: gold; shillings: silver; pence: copper) in stamp colour (pounds: violet; shillings: green; pence: lilac) and in stamp size (pounds: large; shillings: medium; pence: small - ordinary postage-stamp size). But the three value-tiers were distinguished in other ways too: by watermark (pounds: Scales; shillings: Thin Block VR, as with the identical-format Foreign Bill issue; pence: Garter); and by overprint colour (pounds: green; shillings: red; pence: brown). The value of each stamp of course appeared in words, but still no figures were used. The only other indication of individual stamp value took the form of very small corner-ornaments, which were subtly different on each value in each tier; but only the very keen-sighted are likely to have benefited from this “aesthetic mnemonic.”
Key Type Corner Ornaments.
[Black: Original issue 1872 Blue: added 1875 Red: added 1881 Green: added 1888]
£1 £2 £3
£5 £6 £20
1s 1/6 2s 2/6
4s 5s 10s
10/6
1d 2d 3d 4d 6d 8d
The original system (Key Type 1) can be set out as follows [79-84]:
Stamp Colour: Watermark Overprint Colour
Pound Values (£1, £2, £5, £20):
Violet: wmk Scales Green
Shilling Values (1s, 1/6, 2/6, 5s, 10s):
Green: wmk Block VR Red (Carmine)
Pence Values (1d, 2d, 3d, 6d, 8d):
Lilac: wmk Garter Brown
79-81
Key Type 1
82-84
Key Type 1
Well and good. But the introduction of Key Types, in which varying appropriation-names could be easily overprinted onto basic unappropriated dies, meant the spread of adhesive Revenue stamps into a large number of new areas; and it seems that some of the new users wondered, as I did, about the lack of numeral information. In fact, a demand probably began to grow quite early on for the clear identification of individual stamp values. At the same time on the other hand De La Rue, or more likely the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, would have been reluctant to throw away their beautiful new designs and start again. (They did so, uniquely, for Judicature Fees, which started off in 1875 using Key Type 2, but after a year changed to its own designs as described on page 4 above.) It is also worth pointing out that both of the new Key Type values introduced in 1875 - the much-used 2s [91, 129, 131, 143] no less than the short-lived 10/6 [95] - as well as the 4s introduced in 1888 [128][8] came with integrally-printed number-values, albeit very small ones. For the rest a compromise solution was found: keep the stamps as they are, but use coding for individual values in the overprint colours, so that a given overprint colour reflects a numerical identity. Between 1875 and 1895 this principle was applied, but from straightforward and workable beginnings it grew into an inherently English muddle which is fascinating in its crypto-Byzantine complexity.
The revised system (Type 2) produced the following more complex picture [85-100][9]:
Pound Values: £1 £2 £5 £20
Violet (soluble ink): wmk Scales Black Blue Green Red
Shilling Values (as above + 2s and 10/6): 1s 1/6,2s 2/6 5s 10s 10/6
Green (soluble ink): wmk Block VR Black Blue Brown Violet Red Orange
Penny Values 1d 2d 3d 6d 8d
Lilac: wmk Garter Black Blue Brown Green Red
If we interpret this positionally, then the “functional equation” goes something like this:
Position 1 – Black = lowest;
Position 2 – Blue = one up from lowest: in which context, 1½ = 2;
Position 3 – Brown = middle: similarly, though at this stage irrelevantly, 2½ = 3;
Position 4 – Green [when on violet stamps] or Violet [when on green stamps] = one down from highest (NB: green and violet are in “complementary distribution”);
Position 5 – Red = highest (NB: the £20 value shown is a modified Type 3 example in lilac);
Position 6 – Orange = “one up from highest”: a one-off which didn’t survive.
85-86
85-100 Key Type 2
87-88
89-95
96-100
85-100 Key Type 2
Unfortunately, in 1881 the system changed again (Type 3), though most of the overprint colours remained unchanged, and became still more complex [101-104; only new values, colour - lilac - and overprint colour – purple/magenta - shown]
Pound Values (as above + £3 and £6): £1 £2 £3 £5 £6 £20
Lilac: wmk 2 Orbs Black Blue Brown Green Purp/Mag Red
Shilling Values (as above; 10/6 dropped): 1s 1/6,2s 2/6 5s 10s
Green: wmk Script VR Black Blue Brown Purple/Magenta Red
Penny Values (as above + 4d): 1d 2d 3d 4d 6d 8d
Lilac: wmk Orb Black Blue Brown Purp/Mag Green Red
101-102
103-104
101-104 Key Type 3
As so often happens, the gain in complexity was matched by a loss of clarity and an increase in user-confusion and user-dissatisfaction, which probably stemmed from the fact that few people think “positionally”. They were much more likely to have expressed the “equation” as follows:
Black = ONE (pound , shilling, penny);
Blue = TWO (pounds, 1½ = 2 shillings, pence);
Brown = THREE (pounds, 2½ [= 3] shillings, pence)
So far so good. But here the symmetries began to dissolve and the system to break down: Green [on lilac stamps] or Purple/Magenta [on green stamps] = FIVE (pounds) and FIVE (shillings) but SIX (pence) – or does it? Because in addition the “complementary distribution” of Green with Violet/Purple has been destroyed: now we’ve also got Purple/Magenta [on lilac stamps] = SIX (pounds) but FOUR (pence). This leaves us with Red = TWENTY (pounds), but TEN (shillings) or EIGHT (pence)…
This elaborate system of colour-coding remained in general use for twenty years, 1875-1895. (Strangely, the last use of the “number-by-colour” code-system in its untouched foolish purity was for Army Telegraphs in 1895, the very year of its virtual demise elsewhere.) But it was basically unsatisfactory, and thought was obviously given to ways of (re)introducing numerals into the designs - at minimum cost, of course. Perhaps not surprisingly it was Consular Service, operating overseas and often with non-British clerks, where the demand was first fully acknowledged, and met by the expedient of placing large seriffed numeral value-overprints on each stamp, varying in colour according to the existing system [105-107][10] (Type 3a).
105-107
Key Type 3a
(At this point we might also mention two specialised variants. In these, the sterling values on certain stamps were overprinted with dollars and cents and rupees and annas [Consular Service: 108-111],
108-111
Key Type 3b-i
or with piastres and dimes [Military Telegraphs: 112-113].
112-113
Key Type 3b-ii
The former employed the existing overprint colour for the foreign-currency overprints as well (Type 3b-i). Military Telegraphs, however, used black overprints on all stamps (Type 3b-ii). Yet for some reason both types used words-only overprints; the sole exceptions were the 100 and 250 dollars [88], where numerals were finally used.)
So in 1886 Consular Service led the way with numeral overprints, while still retaining the existing overprint colour-code system. Shortly thereafter, however, two new appropriations came into being (British Bechuanaland 1887 [114-116]
114-116
Key Type 4a
and Isle of Man 1888 [117-119]), and perhaps because they were not (for different reasons in each case) quite so overshadowed by the preferences of the UK Inland Revenue, it was decided to ignore all colour-coding and simply use black for the appropriation overprints (Type 4a). But this led to even more confusion, and so in 1888 the Bechuanaland stamps were re-issued with small, locally-printed numeral overprints (Type 4b) – still generally in black [120], though not always [121]. The Isle of Man had to wait a few years longer.
117-119
Key Type 4a
120-121
Key Type 4b
Gradually, a double consensus was being reached: numeral overprints solved the problem of value-recognition; and once you had these numeral overprints, the value-tier colour-coding became superfluous. So in 1888 two new Key Type series came out, with both appropriation and large sans serif numeral overprints in black for all values: Contract Note [122-123] and Transfer Duty [124-128]. There were other innovations; Contract Note used lilac as the stamp colour for shilling as well as pence values (Type 4c-i), while Transfer Duty changed stamp colour every year, using one colour per year for both value tiers (Type 4c-ii).
122-123
Key Type 4c-i
124-128
Key Type 4c-ii
The apparent success of these innovations led in due course to a fin de siècle free-for-all; a colourful spectrum of variations was introduced between 1894 and the end of Victoria’s reign (Types 4d – 4f). The “discovery” of large numeral overprints and the ending of colour-coding led to a variety of new forms. Isle of Man stayed with its black overprint colour, in 1894 using a thin, “British”-type overprint [129] (Type 4d-i) but changing in 1895 to the thicker “Irish” version [130-132] (Type 4d-ii)[1]. Other appropriations acquired their own colours - for example, Bankruptcy used brown [133-135], Land Registry lilac/purple [136-138], Civil Service green [139-140], Colonial Office Services blue [141-142], Police Courts vermilion [143], and Cyprus brown [144]. In most cases, the stamp colours remained unchanged (pounds: lilac; shillings: green; pence: lilac), though even these were reversed by Judicature Ireland [145-147] and County Courts Ireland [148-149], both of which used a red overprint colour, in two different styles as shown (Type 4f)11.
129
Key Type 4d-i
130-132
Key Type 4d-ii
Other appropriations acquired their own colours - for example, Bankruptcy used brown [133-135],
133-135
Land Registry lilac/purple [136-138],
136-138
Civil Service green [139-140],
139-140
Colonial Office Services blue [141-142],
141-142
Police Courts vermilion [143],
143
and Cyprus brown [144]
144
Key Type 4e
and in most cases, the stamp colours remained unchanged (pounds: lilac; shillings: green; pence: lilac), though even these were reversed by Judicature Ireland [145-147]
145-1