the birth of the adhesive postage stamp

uniform penny prepay postage was devised by Sir Rowland Hill and the so called "penny black" and "twopenny blue" adhesive stamps were introduced for sale in May 1840 by local postmasters in Great Britain
the stamps were of the small upright portrait format of the head of the then monarch Queen Victoria...
the used stamp shown above has a Maltese Cross obliterator cancel on it chosen for its distinctiveness and to stop fraudulant reuse of the stamp...
the postmaster cut each stamp by hand from a sheet and the examples sought by collectors have four wide margins
in 1850 a perforation machine was devised with rows of holes to allow tearing off as with modern stamps
the extra shows the heads of the British monarchs since 1840 and of course the head of Charles 111 will soon be added