British embossed postage stamps British embossed postage stamps The adhesive embossed postage stamps of the United Kingdom, issued during the reign of Queen Victoria between 1847 and 1854 exhibit four features which are unique to this issue: Three values of the octagonal stamps were introduced to cover higher foreign and registered postal charges on the following dates: 1 Shilling (green) - 11 September 1847, 10d (brown) - 6 November 1848, 6d (mauve/lilac/purple) - 1 March 1854 The 1 shilling was the first British postage stamp to bear a value above 2d. The dies used for this type of printing have the embossed, (raised), portions
Postage stamp impossible to counterfeit a finely detailed image with raised lines unless you were a master engraver. In the mid-20th century, stamp issues produced by other forms of printing began to emerge, such as lithography, photogravure, intaglio and web offset printing. These later printing methods were less expensive and typically produced images of lesser quality. Apart from these, there are also Revenue (used to collect taxes or fees on items such as documents, tobacco, alcoholic drinks, hunting licenses and medicines) and Telegraph stamps (for sending telegrams), which fall in a separate category from postage stamps. Postage stamps are first issued on