Penny Black printing plates Penny Black printing plates The printing plates for the Penny Black, two pence blue and the VR official were all constructed by Perkins Bacon, the printers of the first postage stamps issued in Great Britain. The construction of these plates was long and complicated, which was intentional so as to make the forgery of the finished article almost impossible. The first stage involved the engraving of a background for the design. This was produced with a rose engine which laid down a circular pattern of symmetrical design onto a piece of soft steel. This was then partly cleared to leave
Laurie Penny was leaving "The Independent" to rejoin the "New Statesman" (in November) as a columnist and contributing editor. Penny is the author of "" (Zero Books, 2011) and" Penny Red: Notes from a New Age of Dissent "(Pluto Press, 2011). In "Meat Market" she mounts an attack on liberal feminism, which she characterises as embracing the consumer choice offered by capitalism as the path to female emancipation. "Penny Red" was shortlisted for the inaugural Bread and Roses Award for Radical Publishing in 2012. "" was published in July 2014. Shortly afterwards, Penny stated she had been subjected to "a stream of