Penny Lilac as perfins - that is with initials or insignia added as perforations to mint stamps which meant they could not be redeemed for cash at a post office. The addition of perfins was widespread practice in Britain from the 1860s as a precaution against theft. Penny Lilac The Penny Lilac was the basic penny postage stamp of Great Britain from its first issue on 12 July 1881 and was used until 1901. It superseded the short lived Penny Venetian Red because the Customs and Inland Revenue Act of 1881 necessitated new stamps that were also valid as revenue stamps, and
Penny dreadful killed the penny dreadful by the simple process of producing the 'ha'penny dreadfuller'". The quality of the Harmsworth/Amalgamated Press papers began to improve throughout the early 20th century, however. By the time of the First World War, papers such as "Union Jack" dominated the market in the UK. Two popular characters to come out of the penny dreadfuls were Jack Harkaway, introduced in the "Boys of England" in 1871, and Sexton Blake, who began in "the Half-penny Marvel" in 1893. In 1904, the "Union Jack" became "Sexton Blake's own paper", and he appeared in every issue thereafter, up until the