Cape of Good Hope 4d Black Triangular

Why the Cape's stamps were triangles

The Cape of Good Hope, a British colony since 1814, issued its first stamps on September 1, 1853: a one penny in brick red and a four pence in blue. They were triangles, the first triangular postage stamps anywhere. The shape was probably inspired by the large triangular canceling device the Cape Revenue Department had used since 1839, and it made the colony's stamps easy to tell apart from the rectangular stamps used across the rest of the British Empire, even for people who could not read.

The design is credited to Charles Davidson Bell, a Scottish-born artist who came to the Cape in 1830, rose to Surveyor-General in 1848 and was appointed to the colony's Postal Enquiry Board in 1852. It shows Hope, the colony's allegorical figure, seated with an anchor, and is inscribed "CAPE OF GOOD HOPE."

The stamps were printed in London by Perkins, Bacon & Co. from a die cut by its engraver William Humphrys. Sheets of special handmade paper, 282 by 536 millimeters, held 240 stamps each. Like early British stamps they were imperforate, so postmasters cut them apart with scissors or a knife. Within the colony, four pence paid a half-ounce letter and one penny a newspaper.

A four-pence in mourning black

Perkins Bacon printed the 4d in blue. The black stamp is the same design on the white paper with an anchor watermark that the firm used for the 1d red and 4d blue printings of 1855 to 1863. No one knows for certain how it came to be issued. What is certain is that it existed by December 1861, when it was listed in a French catalog compiled by Alfred Potiquet.

By 1865 some leading collectors, the famous Philipp von Ferrary among them, believed it was a color changeling, perhaps a blue stamp darkened by immersion in seawater; others were sure it was a genuine shade. At a Paris congress in 1878 a delegate who owned one declared that it was a special mourning issue of 300 stamps ordered by the Cape's governor after the death of Prince Albert, the Prince Consort, and sold for only eight days. Others pointed out that the printing plates had never left London.

The mourning story collapses on its dates. Prince Albert died on December 14, 1861, and news of his death did not reach the Cape until January 30, 1862, several weeks after Potiquet's catalog had already listed the black stamp. Edward Denny Bacon, who bought an example for the British Royal Collection in 1924, also argued that any mourning stamp would have had to be printed in London and would have arrived two or three months too late.

Bacon suggested that a sheet or two had been printed in black in 1853 as proofs, to show the Postmaster General what the stamps would look like. But the first 1853 printing was on blued paper, and the black stamps are on white. Other ideas followed: a 1932 suggestion that they came from experiments with perforating, and a 1941 suggestion that black sheets were used as wrapping paper for shipments of real stamps, which a Perkins Bacon employee said was not the firm's custom.

The shortage of 1861

The explanation most writers now accept ties the black stamps to a crisis in the colony's post. By early 1861 the Cape had run short of 1d and 4d stamps. A Cape Town printer, Saul Solomon & Co., was hired to make an emergency supply of 125,102 one-penny and 113,256 four-pence stamps, issued in February 1861. These locally made triangles became known as the "Woodblocks," although the individual stamp units were in fact engraved on metal by C.J. Roberts and mounted on wooden blocks. Two units were put in the wrong blocks, producing a blue penny and a red four-pence, now famous errors.

The shortage had an ironic cause. A consignment of stamps from London had in fact arrived on May 5, 1860, but its bills of lading had gone astray, and the cases were not claimed for about a year.

In 1941 the stamp writers L.N. and M. Williams, and L.N. Williams again in 1979, argued that the 4d blacks were proof sheets of the watermarked paper that had been sent to the colony and were requisitioned as stamps during that shortage. In their words, "the bottom of the barrel was being scraped in an endeavour to meet the crying need for stamps." A 2021 sale description summed up current thinking the same way: the stamps probably represent proof sheets pressed into service during the 1861 shortage.

Twelve stamps and their owners

Only twelve examples of the 4d black have been authenticated, making it one of the rarest stamps of the British Commonwealth. One has been in the British Royal Philatelic Collection since Edward Denny Bacon acquired it in 1924.

Another, once in the collection of Maurice Burrus, was described as lightly used when it sold at auction on November 1, 2006, for £7,475.

The best-documented recent example came from the collection of Baron Stig Leuhusen and was sold in a world rarities sale in November 2009. When it sold again at auction in London on January 20, 2021, it was described as having two good margins at the foot and left, cutting slightly into the design at the right, with a light cancellation that leaves the design clear and a small surface abrasion at lower left that had been very lightly touched in. It carried a 1982 certificate from the British Philatelic Association and sold for £24,000, against a catalog value of £35,000.

How to tell a genuine black

A genuine 4d black is a Perkins Bacon printing in black on white paper watermarked with an anchor, the paper of the 1855-63 issues, not the blued paper of 1853. Every Cape triangular has been forged, often badly, and forgeries generally lack the anchor watermark of the genuine stamps.

The color is the whole point, and the oldest doubt about the stamp is whether a blue stamp could have turned black. As early as 1865 collectors suspected seawater or chemical change, so an expert certificate matters more here than for almost any other triangular. The example sold in 2021, for instance, was backed by a 1982 certificate.

Like all the triangulars, the stamps are imperforate and were cut from the sheet by hand, so margins vary from example to example and are a large part of how each one is judged.

The numbers

Series issue date

September 1, 1853

4d black first recorded

December 1861

Quantity known

12 authenticated examples

Quantity printed

Unknown; an 1878 claim of 300 was tied to a disproved mourning story

Paper

White paper watermarked with an anchor (as used 1855-63)

Perforation

Imperforate

Printing

Perkins Bacon, London; sheets of 240

Timeline

1. 1852

   Charles Davidson Bell is appointed to the Cape's Postal Enquiry Board; he designs the triangular stamp.

2. Sep 1, 1853

   The Cape issues its first stamps, the 1d brick red and 4d blue triangulars printed by Perkins Bacon in London.

3. 1855

   Printings on white paper with an anchor watermark begin; the 4d black is on this paper.

4. May 5, 1860

   A consignment of stamps from London arrives at the Cape, but its bills of lading go astray.

5. Feb 1861

   The emergency locally printed "Woodblock" triangulars are issued during a stamp shortage.

6. Dec 1861

   Alfred Potiquet's French catalog lists the 4d black, the first record of the stamp.

7. Dec 14, 1861

   Prince Albert dies; news reaches the Cape on January 30, 1862, after the black stamp was already known.

8. 1864

   The Cape replaces its triangular stamps with a rectangular design.

9. 1865

   Some leading collectors, including Ferrary, regard the black as a color changeling.

10. 1878

    At a Paris congress, a delegate claims the black was a 300-stamp mourning issue sold for eight days.

11. 1924

    Edward Denny Bacon acquires an example for the British Royal Collection.

12. 1941

    L.N. and M. Williams propose that the blacks were proof sheets used during the 1861 shortage.

13. 1982

    The British Philatelic Association certifies the example later sold in 2021.

14. Nov 1, 2006

    The ex-Burrus example sells at auction for £7,475.

15. Nov 2009

    The ex-Leuhusen example is sold in a world rarities sale.

16. Jan 20, 2021

    The ex-Leuhusen example sells at auction in London for £24,000.

The world in 1861

• Mar 3, 1861

  Tsar Alexander II abolishes serfdom in the Russian Empire.

• Mar 17, 1861

  The Kingdom of Italy is proclaimed, with Victor Emmanuel II as king.

• Mar 30, 1861

  William Crookes announces his discovery of the element thallium.

• Apr 12, 1861

  The American Civil War begins with the bombardment of Fort Sumter.

• Jun 25, 1861

  Ottoman Sultan Abdulmejid I dies and is succeeded by Abdulaziz.

• Dec 14, 1861

  Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, dies.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Cape of Good Hope 4d Black Triangular is number 59 of 100 in the stamps entries of the FLOAT 100. 82 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (19 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The Cape triangulars were the first triangular postage stamps in the world.
• The 4d black was already in a French catalog weeks before news of Prince Albert's death reached the Cape, which sank the long-told story that it was a mourning issue.
• Some 19th-century collectors thought the black stamps were ordinary blue ones darkened by seawater.
• The 1861 stamp shortage was needless: a shipment of stamps had been sitting at the Cape since May 1860, its shipping papers lost.
• The triangle shape was meant to let even people who could not read recognize a Cape stamp.
• The man credited with the design, Charles Davidson Bell, was the colony's Surveyor-General and has a Cape Town suburb, Bellville, named after him.