Great Britain Philatelic Society

This question came up in a Zoom meeting last week. It is literally miles away from my current collecting interests but I thought I would ask here to see if anyone can help.

Is it known why the design of the 1881 1d lilac was changed from 14 to 16 dots. I can understand that for some reason a new die may have been used but why change the design. Was it a deliberate change?.

Any references would be most welcome.

John

It is often said that the time De La Rue took from producing dies through to the first stamps was usually between 4-10 months or even longer. For the 1d lilac, in about two months, late March to late May, De La Rue had produced designs, dies, had the first two plates registered and approved and had printed the first 6000 sheets of stamps. However, it can be seen that as ideas had been in circulation for far longer than that the firm could initiate the processes more quickly than normal. The probability, though, is that in order to speed production Die I was only ever meant to be an interim die and its design could expect slight modification to provide a more suitable one for ongoing, full scale production. No Die I proofs have been seen struck ’After Hardening’. Furthermore, only 2.3 million sheets were printed from the eight Die I plates as compared with up to 1.5 million sheets for some individual Die II plates.
Ceylon stamps show a similar alteration in number of pearls

Thank you for that information. Much appreciated.

John

Hi John i have found a possible answer from Stamp Magazine august 1992. There is a very good article concerning the Penny Lilac .W A.Wiseman stated that the wording on the stamp was
considered to be too small, and for that reason a second die was begun. Die proofs exist with the annotation Background has been opened out and the legend is now bolder hand engraved. Why the number of pearls was changed could not be found in the records.

.