British embossed postage stamps very narrow which is why examples with four margins are rare. In some cases the impressions were impressed overlapping each other by quite a large amount. The stamps were embossed, (printed), at Somerset House. Early collectors would often cut the stamps to shape retaining only the embossed central design and cut square examples are much more valuable. In 1856 after the European postage rate was reduced the stamps were replaced by surface printed issues. 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
Postage stamps and postal history of Mexico Just as there is no consensus on what constitutes "classic stamps" in general, there is no agreement on what is the "classic period" for stamps of Mexico. In 1926, Samuel Chapman in his "The Postage Stamps of Mexico", referred to the "provisional period" as running from 1856 to 1868. In 1983, Schatzkès & Schimmer published a study of "the Cancellations of Mexico from 1856-1874", but they did not specifically call that the "classic period." Pulver in his "Introduction to the Stamps of Mexico" (1992) included a chapter entitled "Classic Era 1856-1883." Including 1883 as the end of the classic period