Penny Venetian Red Penny Venetian Red The Penny Venetian Red was a British postage stamp equal to the value of one penny. Issued in 1880, it was designed and surface-printed by security printing company De La Rue. It superseded the Penny Red that had been used in Great Britain since 1841, and was the third one-penny stamp to enter regular usage in the country. The Venetian Red was aesthetically similar to the Penny Red and Penny Black that had come before it, but was instead coloured a venetian red and had a square framing. Close to 1.5 million Venetian Reds were printed during
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