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
Penny press penny-paying public. These new newspaper readers enjoyed information about police and criminal cases. The main revenue for the penny press was advertising while other newspapers relied heavily on high priced subscriptions to finance their activities. The idea of a penny paper was not new in the 1830s. By 1826, many editors were experimenting with sports news, gossip, and a cheap press. Most newspapers in the early nineteenth century cost six cents and were distributed through subscriptions. On July 24, 1830, the first penny press newspaper came to the market: Lynde M. Walter's Boston "Transcript". Unlike most later penny papers, Walter's