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 the United States his career, ranging in value from 1¢ to $5 (a princely sum in those days). They are often considered the first commemorative stamps issued by any country. The stamps were interesting and attractive, designed to appeal to not only postage stamps collectors but to historians, artists and of course the general public who bought them in record numbers because of the fanfare of the Columbian Exposition of the World's Fair of 1892 in Chicago, Illinois. They were quite successful (a great contrast to the pictorials of 1869), with lines spilling out of the nation's post offices to buy the stamps.