161st Anniversary of Ceylon’s First Postage Stamp
The first stamp for Ceylon was issued on April 1, 1857.
The Perkins’ Press printing machine which is now in the British Library Philatelic Collection.
The stamp features a portrait of Queen Victoria and is brown in colour. It is a 6 pence value stamp used to send a half ounce letter from Ceylon to England.
A special feature of this stamp is it’s printed on a blued paper with a star watermark.
Sir Rowland Hill
Sir Rowland Hill
Sir Rowland Hill proposed an adhesive stamp to indicate pre-payment of postage.
At the time it was normal for the recipient to pay postage on delivery, charged by the sheet and on distance travelled.
The first postage stamp
was printed in the
United Kingdom in 1840.
As Ceylon was a British colony in those days, letters were transmitted between both countries. As a result, Ceylon’s first postage stamp was designed in London and printed by Perkins, Bacon & Co.
According to the statistics
65,000 stamps were printed.
Printing plates contained
240 impressions in 20 rows of 12 and it was imperforated.
Postal reforms came to Ceylon in 1856. An ordinance published that year established postal rates effective April 1, 1857 at 1 d., for ½ oz. and an additional 1 d., for the next ½ oz., with each additional ounce being 2 d.
Newspapers and printed matter for domestic destinations was ½ d.,
and for foreign destinations was 1 d. The first pound of a parcel was 8 d., with each additional pound at 4 d.
Prepayment was to be made by stamps, however, until stamps, became available, prepayment could be made
in cash.
1857 (June 26) letter from Colombo to Trieste, bearing very fine 6 d., purple-brown stamps. Letter was sold in auction for $21,000.
Block of Ceylon First Postage Stamp
Image of the back of the stamp clearly indicates the blued colour and the star watermark.
Ceylon’s first postage stamp with all margins.