Commemorative stamp of Queen Victoria, although there are no special inscriptions on the stamps, and they were intended as regular stamps. In 1870 Peru issued a 5¢ scarlet Locomotive and Arms stamp and is regarded as the first commemorative postage stamp, issued to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the first railway in South America. Though the United Kingdom often set the precedent for postage stamps and their designs, they were the late runners with the issue of their first commemorative stamp, not issuing one until 1924 when it printed and released the British Empire Exhibition issue of 1924. Other premier commemorative stamps
Postage stamp on the last day of the Congressional session four years later, the "Act of March 3, 1855" required the prepayment of postage on all mailings. Thereafter, postage stamp use in the U.S. quickly doubled, and by 1861 had quadrupled. In 1856, under the direction of Postmaster General James Campbell, Toppan and Carpenter, ("commissioned by the U.S. government to print U.S. postage stamps through the 1850s") purchased a rotary machine designed to separate stamps, patented in England in 1854 by William and Henry Bemrose, who were printers in Derby, England. The original machine cut slits into the paper rather than punching