Monochrome 1913 handbook illustration of the centre ONE PNNEY error; original stamp is blue. Not a colour specimen scan; expert authentication is not supplied.
1902 / Heritage
One Pnney on Queen Victoria 2½d
One Pnney · constant surcharge error
The story behind the issue
A transposed-letter error in the local penny surcharge occurs once in each pane. This specialist entry is separate from the ordinary One Penny provisional.
Technical details
- Issuing authority
- Malta (British colonial administration)
- Postal purpose
- Postage
- Currency
- GBP pre-decimal
- Stamp format
- Constant surcharge error
- Underlying denomination
- 2½d
- Overprint / surcharge
- ONE PNNEY
- Designer
- Not documented
- Printer
- Government Printing Office, Valletta (surcharge)
- Printing process
- Not documented
- Stamp dimensions
- Not documented
- Stamps per sheet
- 120 stamps in two panes of 60; each pane surcharged separately
- Perforation
- 14
- Watermark
- Crown CA
- Paper
- Not documented
- Colour
- Blue shades
- Quantity
- 12000
Sources & verification
Partially verifiedSéfi records the error at the second stamp from the left in the second row from the bottom of each pane, and reports 12,000 error stamps among 720,000 surcharged stamps. The reported total is historical, not a current census. The surcharge issue date is supported; no particular gum or shade is inferred for the illustrated example.
- A. J. Séfi, The Postage Stamps of Malta (1913), chapter XIX, pp34–35: surcharge setting and One Pnney error ↗
- A. J. Séfi, The Postage Stamps of Malta (1913), chapters III and XV–XX: original sheet arrangements and plate marks ↗
Image & attribution
Alexander Joseph Séfi, The Postage Stamps of Malta (1913); centre stamp cropped from contemporary corner-block illustration via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain — exact Commons source declares PD-scan / PD-old, 1913 publication; author Alexander Joseph Séfi died 1934
One documented constant lettering error. Does not duplicate the ordinary surcharge or enumerate minor broken-type, shade and gum varieties.
In the same issue
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