Shape shifters

Back in 1840 when Britain introduced adhesive postage stamps their shape was determined by the gummed label which secured a tax stamp to a parchment legal document. At that time tax stamps were embossed on thick blue ‘sugar bag’ paper, glued to the top right-hand corner of the parchment and secured by a lead staple for good measure. In turn, the ends of the staple were held in place by the little gummed label, an upright rectangle about 18mm wide and 24mm long. This format has been used for the vast majority of British stamps to this day, and when other countries adopted stamps they tended to use the same dimensions.

However, Britain was also the first country to deviate from this shape. In 1847, when stamps of a higher value than twopence were deemed necessary, production was entrusted to the Stamping Branch of the Board of Stamps and Taxes at Somerset House in the Strand – the very place where legal documents were sent to be embossed.

Naturally enough, Somerset House applied this technique to the high values, beginning with the shilling stamp in an upright octagonal format, which was subsequently used for the tenpenny stamp of 1848-54. The sixpenny stamp, introduced