The completion of 175 years since the issue of the world’s first postage stamp which marks a unique milestone in the history of the world post is very significant event in the World Post Day 2015. It is with the issue of the world’s first postage stamps which is called the Penny Black that the formal as well as informal postal service that existed till then began to become a more systematic service. The proposal for the affixing of a label on the postal item to the effect that postage has been paid following the systematic pre-paid postage system instead of the post-paid postage system that existed in Britain till then was presented to the British Government in 1837 by the Sir Rowland Hill, a British, in the set of proposals for postal reforms which was accepted by the British Government.

Accordingly, the labels which indicated that postage had been paid were able to purchase at post offices In Britain since the 01st of May 1840. The first stamps of the world which came into being accordingly called the Penny Black as it was one penny in denomination and black in color. It depicted the bust portrait of Queen Victoria, the then heir to the British Crown. The bust of Queen Victoria which was carved on plates by Charles Heath and Fredrick Heath who were farther and son following a bust portrait drawn by artist Henry Corbould which was based on the bust portrait of Princess Victoria as depicted in the commemorative medal created by William Wyon in 1834 to commemorate the Queen’s visit to the city of London in 1837 who was then 15 years old was used for printing of this stamp.

The size of the Penny Black stamp was 19mm * 22mm printed on a sheet 240 stamps of 12 strips and 20 rows. At that time the stamp sheets were not perforated and stamps had to be cut and separated with the use of a pair of scissors. On the two bottom corners of the stamp, two English letters were printed to enable the identification of the place of the stamp in the sheet. By the letter on the left the row of the stamp was indicated while the strip was indicated by the letter on the right and the rows were named from A to L and strips from A to T. The Penny Black stamp was printed by Perkins Bacon Printing Company and it was printed until January 1841 with the use of 11 plates and total of 68,808,000 stamps were printed. The minimum estimated value of an unused Penny Black stamp today is over Rs. 4 lakhs.