Introduced in 1870 the Bantam or Halfpenny line engraved stamp was a curiosity. It was half the size of any stamp seen in Great Britain and likewise cost half as much. Yet it was still printed as a Line Engraved stamp even though Surface printing (A far cheaper method.) had been used for GB stamps since 1855. The stamp was introduced to pay for a newly introduced reduction in the postage rate of Newspapers and other printed matter.
Instead of a crown watermark that had been the norm on the line engraved, the watermark for this issue had the wording 'halfpenny' across three stamps.
A Plate 13
The 1d sheets of penny reds, that were the norm for 25-30 years were printed in sheets of 240 stamps lettered AA AB AC .... AL and continued down to the bottom row as TA TB TC ...... TL.
However the half sized stamp called for half size measures and so there were now 480 stamps on each printed sheet. Printed in 20 rows of 24 stamps they were lettered.
AA ..... AX through to TA ... TX.
Plate wise there were a small number of plates used in comparison to the 1d with plates 1,3,4,5,6,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,19 and 20 all put to press. The other plates 2,7,16,17 and 18 were not completed whilst two other plates 21 and 22 were produced and registered but never used.
The rarest is plate 9 the 'only in an emergency' plate is valued at x60 of a 'normal' plate.
A Plate 9
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