New Zealand 1855 Chalon Head 'Full-Face Queen' 1d

A colony catches up

Britain introduced the postage stamp in 1840. New Zealand, then a young British colony, decided in 1850 to follow the example and introduce prepayment of postage with stamps, but it took five more years for the stamps to arrive. The design was arranged between the colonial government and the London security printers Perkins, Bacon & Co.

The first printing was made in London in September 1854. The stamps, and the printing plates, were sent out to New Zealand, and the first stamps were put on sale on July 18, 1855. The set had three values: 1 penny, 2 pence and 1 shilling.

The London stock was soon supplemented by local printing. Printing began in Auckland with the commercial press of J. Richardson, at first on the paper supplied from London and later on other papers, and every later printing of the series was made in New Zealand from the plates prepared in England.

Chalon, Corbould and Humphrys

The portrait behind the stamp was painted by Alfred Edward Chalon to mark Queen Victoria's first public appearance as monarch, when she went to the House of Lords to prorogue Parliament in July 1837. It was meant as a gift for her mother. One philatelic society page dates the portrait to 1838.

For the stamp, Edward Henry Corbould made a watercolor sketch of the queen's head and bust from Chalon's painting, and William Humphrys engraved the stamp image from that sketch. The stamps are recess-printed, or intaglio, from engraved plates, and measure 21 by 28 millimeters. The plates held 240 stamps, laid down in 20 rows of 12.

Perkins, Bacon used the Chalon portrait for many colonies. It appeared on stamps of the Province of Canada in 1851, Nova Scotia in 1853, Tasmania and New Zealand in 1855, the Bahamas and Natal in 1859, Grenada, New Brunswick and Queensland in 1860, and Prince Edward Island in 1870.

How to recognize a London print

The London stamps were printed on paper watermarked with a large star, which started a tradition of star watermarks on New Zealand stamps that lasted until the 1970s. On the London 1d the star sits at the middle left of the stamp. The early Richardson printings in Auckland, from 1855 to 1861, were mostly on unwatermarked paper.

Color is the other clue. The London 1d is described as a dull carmine, the color of dried blood, while later printings by Davies were orange-vermilion or carmine-vermilion. Sources do not agree on the name, and one catalogue lists the London penny as orange.

All the early stamps were imperforate and had to be cut apart with scissors, so margins vary from copy to copy. From 1862 sheets began to be fed through perforating machines. Collectors are warned that London printings are rare and expensive and should be expertized before purchase.

A penny that sold for five figures

Because the issue is a type rather than one stamp, its record is told through individual copies. On November 3, 2012, a fine used London 1d in dull carmine, with three margins and a clear barred numeral '9' cancellation, was offered at auction in Wellington with an estimate of NZ$12,500 ($10,338).

It sold for NZ$13,000 ($10,750), about 4 percent over the estimate. The auction house's manager said he had seen only about 10 examples of this stamp in four decades of handling New Zealand material. A lesser copy described as 'good used' had sold earlier for $5,250, at an unstated date.

The Chalon design stayed on New Zealand stamps for nearly two decades, but the London penny is the stamp that stands at the head of the series.

Nineteen years of the Full Face Queen

The Chalon heads were used until 1874, when lithographed stamps with a side-facing portrait of the queen replaced them. Over those years more values were added, all printed in New Zealand, colors changed in 1871, and different printers and papers produced many color varieties. The result is one of the most studied series in New Zealand philately.

Specialists sort the Full Face Queens by printer, paper, watermark and perforation, from the London printing through the Richardson and Davies printings to the perforation trials of the 1860s. The London 1d, with its large star watermark and dull carmine color, is the starting point of that study.

The numbers

Issue date

July 18, 1855

Printer

Perkins, Bacon & Co., London (first printing, September 1854)

Process

Recess-printed (intaglio)

Sheet

240 stamps, 20 rows of 12

Stamp size

21 x 28 mm

Watermark

Large star

Perforation

Imperforate

Color

Dull carmine (also described as orange)

Series in use

1855 to 1874

Timeline

1. Jul 1837

   Queen Victoria prorogues Parliament; Alfred Edward Chalon paints her in her state robes for the occasion.

2. 1840

   Britain introduces the first postage stamps.

3. 1850

   New Zealand decides to introduce prepaid postage with stamps.

4. Sep 1854

   Perkins, Bacon & Co. print the first New Zealand stamps in London.

5. Jul 18, 1855

   New Zealand's first stamps, the 1d, 2d and 1s Chalon heads, go on sale.

6. 1855

   J. Richardson begins printing the stamps in Auckland from the London plates.

7. 1862

   Sheets begin to be fed through perforating machines.

8. 1871

   Colors of several values are changed.

9. 1874

   Lithographed side-face designs replace the Chalon heads.

10. Nov 3, 2012

    A fine used London 1d sells at auction in Wellington for NZ$13,000 ($10,750).

The world in 1855

• Jan 23, 1855

  The Wairarapa earthquake, magnitude 8.2 to 8.3, strikes near Cook Strait, New Zealand.

• May 15, 1855

  The Exposition Universelle opens in Paris; Queen Victoria visits later in the year.

• Jul 4, 1855

  Thomas Cook escorts excursionists from England to the continent to see the Paris exhibition.

• Sep 9, 1855

  Sevastopol falls to French and British troops in the Crimean War.

• Oct 17, 1855

  Ironclad floating batteries go into action for the first time, at the Battle of Kinburn.

• Oct 1855

  Henry Bessemer patents his steelmaking process.

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, New Zealand 1855 Chalon Head 'Full-Face Queen' 1d is number 67 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 (79 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• New Zealand decided to adopt postage stamps in 1850, but the first ones did not go on sale until 1855.
• The portrait was painted for the young queen's first appearance at the House of Lords and was meant as a gift for her mother.
• The same Chalon portrait was used on stamps from Canada to Queensland.
• The large star watermark on New Zealand's first stamps started a tradition that lasted until the 1970s.
• The first New Zealand stamps had no perforations and were cut apart with scissors.
• An auction manager in Wellington said he had seen only about 10 London-printed penny stamps in 40 years.