Printing
The presses used for the embosses dies, allowed for only one stamp to be printed at a time. This method of production meant that the spacing on the sheets varied from wide spacing, (which is uncommon), to 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.
Read more about this topic: British Embossed Postage Stamps
Famous quotes containing the word printing:
“It seems not more reasonable to leave the right of printing unrestrained, because writers may be afterwards censured, than it would be to sleep with doors unbolted, because by our laws we can hang a thief.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“Before printing was discovered, a century was equal to a thousand years.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The printing press was at first mistaken for an engine of immortality by everybody except Shakespeare.”
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)